Where Do You Input the Cheat Codes
by Octoya
Summary: It seems like, just as the monsters of Underfell have made it into the light, issues long buried are slowly being unearthed as well. Issues of lost friends, resentful little children, demons, and unstable dummied-out space. And to Undertale, the problems of Underfell are infectious. A continuation of The Many Worlds Theory Sucks and sequel to This Game is Too Hard
1. The Stumbled-Upon Thought

It wasn't their very first night, but it was one of the first. Neo New Home wasn't fully set up back then, and Papyrus wasn't even sure he was finished with their own house. He was sure that there were still bits he had to add to the roof. He'd been slow about it. He'd been worrying too much about Undyne making a ruckus back then.

That was a mistake, since he learned quickly that the surface liked to "rain" a lot. Still, he didn't mind things getting a little wet. Wet was another word for clean, right? Water cleaned things, right?

It was different that night, though. It had been grey all day, and Papyrus had simply expected it to rain and to feel it through the cracks in his room's ceiling. He hadn't expected the thunder, an earth-shattering clap and rumble that sounded out while he struggled over something as simple as going to sleep.

It brought him upright with a yelp, that horrible sound which made the walls tremble. A second yelp followed after that, when his window lit with violent light for just a few seconds and then it was gone. And then after that, _another _horrible clap and rumble that he could feel in his bones. Something terrible was happening.

Heaven knew why. But he scrambled out of bed, untangled himself from his sheets, and went straight to Sans' room.

But Sans wasn't on his mattress, it seemed, and that just made it all the worse. "SANS?" Papyrus turned in a circle, trying to ignore how _gross_ Sans' room was. There wasn't time. Another low rumble sounded in the distance, this time at least without the clap to precede it. "SANS WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?"

"down here boss," came a muffled reply, and Papyrus put his hands on his hips as he expectantly looked down. Didn't seem to be a Sans there at first. Until he realized that the lumpy mattress in his brother's room was sporting a particularly large lump tonight.

As he knelt down, he could faintly see his brother shivering underneath it. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU _DOING_ GET OUT FROM THERENYAH-!" The room lit up with electric blue for just a moment, and Papyrus grit his teeth against another house-shaking clap.

Sans waited until the rumble had faded to respond. "nnnah i'm gonna stay here."

"DON'T BE RIDICULOUS." A moment of pause, and Papyrus smothered another yelp at another flash and clap, both fairly close together that time. "WHAT THE HELL _IS_ THAT?"

He could hear Sans chuckling, a breathless constricted sound. "it's called thunder and lightning."

"WELL IT'S ANNOYING, MAKE IT STOP."

"can't." Sans gulped in a breath. At another flash, Papyrus punched the ground with one fist to disguise his shaking shoulders, and Sans seemed to curl in tighter as he continued, "it's all up in the sky. when two clouds rub together they cause the lightning. 's static electricity."

"OH."

"lightning burns the air, makes it expand. when it's gone it all contracts. that makes the thunder."

"OH," he hissed through his teeth at another blue flash, and later a clap and low rumble. He didn't like being on the second floor while the sound filled the house... almost like someone was wandering around downstairs. "IT'S NOT GOING TO. STATIC ELECTRICITY _US_, RIGHT?" he asked, as he caught Sans' little form shivering in the glow of the lightning.

"t-ten seconds," Sans wheezed. "or more. over two miles away. prob'ly won't hit us."

"OH." Papyrus frowned at him, even if his brother wasn't looking. "THEN WHY ARE YOU COWERING LIKE A MORON UNDER THERE?"

"can't stop."

There wasn't a good reply to make to that. Even if he were to sneer at Sans and call him a weakling, Papyrus just banged against the ground again as he jumped at the latest clap to shake the house. He quickly sat down next to the shivering mattress, wishing for the first time that he was that small so he had something to hide under.

He scowled. "WHEN I'M BETTER RESTED, I'M GOING TO FIGHT THE FUCKING RAIN. NYAH_Hhhh_!" _That_ one seemed close, that time.

"yeah uh good luck with that."

At that, and the little wheeze that followed it, Papyrus growled. If it weren't for his agreement with the human Frisk, he would drag Sans out from under the mattress and demand that he shop making those pitiful fearful sounds. He folded his arms, staring at his boots and trying not to look towards the window, where even between flashes there was rain pounding on the glass. It was nothing like the dripping of waterfall. It was nothing like Snowdin.

But that was no reason to hide and pretend it wasn't there.

"hey boss? wh... what are you, uh, what are you doin in here anyway."

Papyrus jumped, and gave the mattress an uneasy glance without moving his head. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN? I'M CHECKING ON _YOU_, OBVIOUSLY."

"suddenly worried about me are ya."

"OH PLEASE, LIKE YOU'RE WORTH WORRYING ABOUT!" Papyrus lowered his head further into his arms, as if huddling closer together would silence the rattling on his shaking bones. "BUT BUT... IF THE ROOF COLLAPSED UNDER ALL THIS _WATER_, OR SOMETHING, AND YOU WERE CRUSHED TO DEATH, FRISK MIGHT NEVER FORGIVE ME."

"nah they'd get over it," wheezed Sans, a breathy chuckle following.

Damn him, now he was out of excuses. Rather than give him the satisfaction of admitting anything Papyrus just sat in silence, squinting into the dark and flinching whenever light suddenly filled his vision. His rattling, and his brother's piteous breathing, were both almost drowned in the pounding rain and sonorous rumbles.

This had better not become the norm for the surface.

Or he was going to have some _choice words _for Frisk about that whole "freeing" them thing.

Although, somehow, it it had gradually become a little less unbearable the longer he sat there. Well, he doubted it would become enough that either of them would get to fall asleep. But that was fine, he would rather die than sleep in Sans' room.

_CRACK!_

Papyrus shivered.

The last time he slept in the same room as Sans, let's see... well, obviously they were children. Before they'd even moved to Snowdin. He remembered there was that year where he had to bunk with Sans for a couple of months, it was just awful. Kept getting locked in the closet.

He'd fought it the whole time. He had a perfectly nice room, even in that tiny house of theirs, but he had to give it up for...

_STOP. _It was a chance train of thought but Papyrus halted it right there, as he sometimes did, like a record skipping. He raised his head a little to peek at the mattress lump that was his brother, and he breathed out slowly.

Things had changed quite a bit since then. Hell, they'd changed quite a bit in the last several days.

He hoped that meant that those times would never come back. Neither those times, nor that face that had stolen his childhood bed, that filled him with anxiety.

Not even if the rumbles softened to a hum through the house and a gentle tap tap on the windows. Not even if the lightning flashes became few and far between. Not even if he made the mistake of nodding off in Sans' room.

Don't let them come back.

He'd rather brave thunderstorms and the occasional, awkward close proximity.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Rip it's been years since I've made the first fic and I still want to finish this series. Don't think this means I won't finish the Undyne fic as well. I just wanted to actually work on this and it was turning the Undyne fic into a chore to wait till it was done before I did. (You won't necessarily need to read the Undyne fic to get this one anyway, although it should give you some more context.)

**Next Chapter**: Wrapped in Black


	2. Wrapped in Black

A strange house full of strangers. But they weren't technically strangers because they were your family members. But somehow that was hard to keep in mind, so the twinge of anxiety you were trying to stuff down somewhere just stayed where it was. And when you finally entered that house full of strangers, with all those strangers turning to look at you, it grew into a full knot around your neck.

That was what it was like. He entered the house, following on his father's heels, and just as soon as he was out of the danger of being outside in the capital, he found... found that his father had stepped to the side of him. And now he being stared at by the little group that crowded the grubby entryway; one old man and two other children. So he couldn't speak for a moment.

"THIS MUST BE HIM THEN," said the gruff old man in a harsh, booming voice. And he froze up at that. "WELL," he continued, nudging two other little ones with his cane. "INTRODUCE YOURSELVES, BRATS."

He flinched, just a little. They were both glaring at him, arms folded. One of them had his mouth turned down in a sulky expression, while the other was smiling nastily. The sulky one spoke first, after a moment. "'m Papyrus."

The smiling one needed a second, harder nudge from the cane before he said, "Sans." Then he looked away, shoving his hands in his pockets. Still smiling.

And then, oh god, it was his turn to introduce himself now. He'd clutched at his cloak, the large black one, with sleeves long enough to cover his hands and the... oddities of them. The cloak large enough to cover most of his oddities. Except his face. He couldn't hide his face.

"My name is-" he started, but it came out wrong.

His father's knuckles came down on his skull. This time it was just a light rap, but he still flinched. "In _aster_," his father said.

The knuckles were hard. "I'm-" Started it right this time. "-Wing Dings-" Almost there. "-Aster."

And that was it. Sans, Papyrus, and - ? wait, none of the adults had introduced themselves - were suddenly done. And he was ashamed that it had become the big knot in his throat as his father left his side, gently closing the door behind them both.

"Go play, my dear, Grandpa and I are going to talk," he said.

"-Okay," Wing Dings replied. In aster.

His father and (was it his grandpa or his father's grandpa?) Grandpa went into the kitchen, presumably to talk about him. Presumably, as he couldn't hear what they were saying exactly. His father was always softspoken, but for Grandpa it must have been quite a feat, as he imagined someone with a big voice like that wasn't used to whispering or muttering his thoughts.

Sans and Papyrus started to look at him again. Papyrus' eyes were cold, but Sans relaxed his shoulders and eased his glaring eyes.

This house, lit as it was by gas light like some Victorian fantasy, was grubby. Wing Dings didn't want to step any farther into it. There were stains on the rug, trash like cans and bottles littered in corners and under the couch, and the wallpaper was also starting to peel. It was only those two who may have looked like they fit in, with old clothes and their sour dispositions.

They were the same size, but their structure was very different. The one called Sans had a squatter, fused face, accounting for the (it appeared) permanent expression, while the one called Papyrus had a moving jaw and, it was likely, a lot more free segments elsewhere on his bones. Were those parts removable? He'd heard that other skeletons could-

"Hey are you gonna say nothin or what?"

Wing Dings blinked (or rather, he winked and his open left eye twitched half-closed.) It was Sans who spoke, his expression having made the complete shift from nasty to bored. Papyrus was retreating to the corner, ignoring either of them to play with a spinning top. Despite their similarity in size, it seemed like there was a clear difference in age between them, Sans not having that youthful squeak of his brother.

Wing Dings shook his head. No, he was not going to talk. Talking took work. Well, talking the right way took work.

But Sans' smile turned nasty again, and he approached suddenly. Sans and Papyrus were both much shorter than him. Wing Dings pressed against the door. "Not a talker huh. You _hidin_ somethin?"

There were plenty of things he had to hide. Wing Dings gave him a broken smile.

"What's wrong with his face?" Papyrus piped up from the corner, and the smile became strained.

"Yeah what's wrong with your face."

"Um," Wing Dings said, in wing dings.

"Oh yeah shit what's wrong with your voice?"

"I," Wing Dings tried again, in aster.

He clutched at his cloak, and that was a mistake because the sleeve slid down his arm as he did. Suddenly, Sans was grabbing him by the wrist and looking at his hand, Wing Dings too startled by the invasive gesture to pull away. "What's wrong with your _hand_?" He poked the black spot on the back, which dipped ever so slightly like a crater on a cave floor. "You could put a marble in that."

"Like Chinese checkers?" Papyrus squeaked.

"Yeah, like Chinese checkers."

Wing Dings yanked his own hand away, his skull flushing red. "Sorry. Sorry."

Sans regarded him curiously, hand still half-raised, and so did Papyrus. Both attracted by the slip up he kept making in fonts. Over in the kitchen, mercifully, it seemed like his father and Grandpa hadn't noticed, still absorbed in their discussion. "That like some kind of code or something? That first thing you said."

"I... speak... wingdings."

Sans turned to flash his brother a lazy smile as Wing Dings trembled. "Bet Gramps can't understand that. Ay yo, Wingnut," the next sentence was to him, Sans was talking to him again. "Mind if we try?"

"...What."

"Tryin wingdings. If you're gonna be livin with us, might as well make yourself useful and teach us something new."

Papyrus screeched from the corner, "HE'S _WHAT_?"

"Correct." The children stiffened as the two adults came out of the kitchen. Wing Dings' father didn't even look at him as he faced the boys. "I thought this had been brought up with everyone involved, but just to go over it again..." Papyrus fidgeted. "The expansion of New Home will be keeping me busy for the next few months. I don't have time to come home early and watch Wing Dings, so he will be staying here with you three until my work load is lighter, and until school starts up again."

Papyrus' eyes burned into Wing Dings, and the tiny skeleton jumped up and ran towards Grandpa. "What! I don't want him to stay here! We don't even have room for hi-"

_Smack! _"QUIET, BOY! THERE'S PLENTY OF ROOM! WE'LL JUST SET HIM UP WITH YOUR BED."

"Where am _I_ going to sleep?"

"YOU SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT THAT BEFORE YOU STARTED SCREAMING!"

Grandpa and Papyrus began going back and forth, with Sans watching them in mean-spirited amusement. Wing Dings could only observe them for a moment before his father stepped in front of him, blocking his view. His father knelt. He looked his child over, and uttered, "Don't make things difficult for your Grandpa Semi."

Oh, it was _his_ Grandpa, after all.

"I w I won't."

Then, and without the others really watching, his father took him by the front of his cloak and leaned in closer. Through gritted teeth, he added, "_Don't_. Make things difficult for your cousins."

Here Wing Dings' face twitched, and a bubble of resentment rose and popped before he could answer properly. "I. _Won't_."

"Good."

But he didn't seem convinced, even when he finally left.

...

It had already been close to lights-out for everybody. They could only use the lamps for so long if they didn't want to run out of fuel and stay stuck in the dark. So Grandpa Semi had fixed Wing Dings, Sans and Papyrus plates of something chewy and meaty, and then after an awkward and quiet dinner they all went to their rooms.

Wing Dings wasn't comfortable in his. For one thing, it smelled like someone had been burning things in it. Papyrus also hadn't gotten a chance to move all of his belongings into Sans' room, so there were clothes and stray toys everywhere that he wasn't keen to step on. The bed in the corner was shaped like a race car and it was hard, only a little better than sleeping on the floor. On the other hand, though that bed belonged to Papyrus, it was surprisingly not too small for him. That should have been enough.

He sat against the wall, arms wrapped around himself. Wrapping himself in the black of his cloak.

New Home was so dark. It was so dark all the time. There was no sun, so crystals to light the way. Just the lamps. In this house, at this time of night, it was more of the same of that; this room had a window, but he had absolutely no idea what the view was. It was oppressive, humbling. But he might not have minded the incessant darkness if it weren't followed by the cold. Too cold in here.

...He must be the only skeleton in the underground to care about that. (Not that there were many left.)

Well there was still one source of light around here. Wing Dings retrieved a tiny flashlight from somewhere in that cloak; there was no telling how much juice was left in these discarded batteries, so he shook it up a bit. He had heard that shaking it helps. The light that flickered to life when he pressed the switch was weak, but steady as he roved it over the walls and ceiling. Papyrus' room was about as dingy as the rest of the house, but luckily it was too dark to tell. He just barely made out the cracks and odd bumps with what light he had.

No wonder it was cold. Maybe a draft was coming in.

"Yo, Ding dong," said a voice behind the door, and Wing Dings half-jumped. "You still up?"

He hadn't expected to hear another peep from anyone that night, let alone Sans. He swallowed a bubble in his not-throat. "_Umm._" Then he answered, "Yes?"

"Cool." The door thudded against his back, and Wing Dings yelped. Sans' voice became harsher. "Sh! C'mon get away from the door."

Wing Dings made a scramble for the bed, and was settling himself on it when Sans peeked in with an impish smile. Wing Dings could just barely make out the light from his eyes, the two little white dots of his eyesockets. "Heya," his cousin said.

"It's It's late. What... do you want?"

"I already said din't I? I wanna learn how to speak wingdings. You can show me, right?"

Oh, that was more than just idle chatter then. In that case, he was even more taken aback by the suggestion. "It would... just... get you.. in trouble," he replied slowly.

"Maybe, but if he don't speak it and we do that means we'll have _something_," Sans said, and as Wing Dings struggled to understand the meaning of that the younger boy's expression turned closer to a scowl. "So are you gonna show me more of it or am I gonna have to make you?"

He wished he was tired enough to say he wanted to go to sleep, and for Sans to try again later. "Uh, what do you wan-"

"Hold on," Sans said suddenly, gently closing the door behind himself. "Kinda dark in here. Hard to see what yer sayin." From his ratty pocket, he pulled out a tiny flashlight on a key-chain and switched it on. The light was decently bright, covered a wider area, although it bobbed around erratically as Sans approached the bed, stopping before he got too close.

"That-?"

Wing Dings pointed to the thing and hoped that the rest of his sentence would be evident enough. Fortunately, it was. Sans held the flashlight up as Wing Dings quietly put his away. "Oh yeah, this is a human thing. Uncle Aster gave us these. Makes it a lot easier to get around at night."

Uncle Aster. In other words, his father.

Things started to click in his head. Even though it'd never before gotten to a point of being formally introduced to them, he'd known of having cousins for all of his life. Oh, because apart from everything else, he had heard about them.

Or rather, he had overheard things about them. Things his father said on the phone, or to a friend, about his nephews.

Sans is _so bright_.

Papyrus was _so bright_.

And it didn't mean anything before, but now Wing Dings found himself frowning - it was easy, one eye was already partially lidded anyway - while Sans waved that stronger flashlight at their faces. He struggled to push past it; Sans didn't seem to think anything of what he just revealed, permanent grin aside.

"...Talking in wingdings is like this," Wing Dings said. "It's the same as other fonts. I'm speaking English right now, but it just doesn't sound like English."

Sans squinted, perhaps trying to pick out words from his tone of voice alone, but he clearly didn't understand the meaning. He scratched his head. "Kinda seems like, uhh. How do you say 'A' in wingdings?"

"A."

"How do you say B?"

"B."

"How do you say-"

He covered his face with one hand. "C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J-"

"Slow _down_, jeeze!" Sans shoved him, and it was unexpected enough that he yelped as he rolled over. "I'm not an idiot, just say em one at a time."

Wing Dings found the hood of his cloak and pulled it up over his head, so suddenly he was almost completely wrapped in black. The shove had shattered his nerve. "Really... don't," he said. "It's... the rules."

"_What_ rules? Gramps never set any rules about it."

While there were a whole set of unspoken rules in life and 'I assumed you'd never be a bad enough kid to do that's, Wing Dings had no patience to explain those concepts in aster. "Dad's. Rules."

"So what? He ain't here either."

Sans switched the flashlight over on him like a stage light and Wing Dings grimaced, raising an arm against his face. He took a deep breath; eventually Sans got tired of his flinching and turned the light away again with a giggle. Wing Dings plucked at his hood as he finally continued, to Sans' further delight, "K... L..."

Every uninterrupted letter made his heart hitch, reminding him of the strange territory he was in and that, even though this wasn't school, his father was nowhere to be found. That the was in fact breaking the rules. But Sans was paying rapt attention as they moved from letters to phonemes, then to words and sentences. He didn't know how much of it this other kid was actually retaining, of course, but still.

And it was weird, and it was uncomfortable.

And he thought maybe he could like Sans. And maybe Papyrus as well, while he was at it. As long as they weren't going to make a habit of shoving him.

But he had a wicked itch, too.

And when they'd burned a good part of the night through, Sans sneaked back off to his room to tell Papyrus while Wing Dings sat there trying to push past it. It was another bubble in his not-throat.

And then he realized, sitting up in bed, that just as Sans had gotten that flashlight as a gift while _he'd_ scrounged up his own, Sans learning to speak something that was against the rules, because there was no rule laid out for it where _Sans_ lived, was just like-

Cheating.

* * *

**Author's Note:** That one creepy cousin you're kinda sorta afraid will kill you in your sleep.

Portraying Wingdings with an underline for now.

**Next Chapter:** The Forest of No Return


	3. The Forest of No Return

There was a legend that the forest around Mt. Ebott was cursed.

Those who entered it either never came back again, or they came back with the daylights scared out of them - depending on which legend you were listening to, anyway. Certainly, there were people who had come back with serious scratches and tales of terrifying and confusing things they'd encountered. To the sensible, the adults, their tales and injuries looked suspiciously like the result of a bear attack. Even that would have been cool, there hadn't been bears around in this country for centuries.

Occasionally someone would ask Frisk, "Hey, you're the resident badass." Then a brief pause for the teacher to yell at them that there was swearing. "Did you see anything strange when you were heading back home through those woods?"

But she would be boring about it, and answer, "No. I didn't see anything that interesting. Not even one ghost."

A ghost she would definitely not smooch.

That didn't stop people from talking about it, though. But kids loved to talk.

Frisk watched them from the other side of the lunch room, munching on a sandwich and keeping her head up with her free hand. So tired. Yeah, other kids never shut up. But maybe it was just bothering her because she had a pretty good idea where the new legends were coming from. Strange creatures in the forest? Long bloody scratches like those a bear would give someone?

It'd been on her mind for a while but maybe today was the point where she got sick of it, or something.

She tried to restrict herself to just visiting her friends on the weekend, but maybe she should make an exception to that today. Swallowing ham and Swiss cheese, the child scrolled slowly through her phone and sent out a text. She was actually glad that the other kids had gotten back into the routine of not sitting too close to her at lunch, because it would have been hard to explain her new contacts.

As always, Sans replied way too fast. Before she'd even finished her sandwich. She had to make sure to also send that he shouldn't actually come out until everyone else was asleep.

That'd be even harder to explain.

Frisk made sure to sneak a couple cans of soda from the big fridge so that she wouldn't be tired when Sans finally arrived in the middle of the night. She sat on her bed in new black and red PJ's as the lights went out all over the building, and she pulled free a can from under her bed.

_You drink the Mundane Cola._

_It doesn't affect your HP._

Outside her door, the smacking footsteps of the matron making her nightly rounds came close; Frisk reached over and turned off the desk lamp while they slowly faded out again. The only light came from gently whirring traffic outside her window, reminders that this room was not, itself, a concocted dream.

Frisk took another long swig of the cola and nudged an empty flowerpot on the bedside table. What an uncomfortable quiet. She knew she should be asleep, but it just wasn't appealing right now. Maybe that was the caffeine.

She saw a lot of strange things when she slept, anyway.

Not terrible things - the Frisk from the other world, that nicer "Blue" world, told her once that she had terrible dreams. Dreams of being ripped apart, burned alive, stabbed, kicked in the face to death, and countless harmless harmful dangers that killed her before she'd even realized that anything was wrong. Terrible things like that brought Blue Frisk awake in the night, short of breath.

But Frisk didn't see anything like that in her own dreams. She thought she would. She'd suffered horrors too, enough that the idea of heading back to Neo New Home always brought a small spike of anxiety. But when she dreamt, although she dreamt of the underground and the world of monsters, it wasn't scary. It was profoundly uncomfortable, but there was no danger in the dreams.

She hadn't brought them up with anyone. She thought she might get more odd looks. Like how Asgore was so puzzled when she said she'd heard his voice screaming for her to come back in her death throes.

At least she didn't panic and do dumb things like Sans.

Speaking of him. A can and a half later, Frisk sent another message. Sans arrived while she was finishing up the other half of can two, his left eye flaring between red and yellow for an instant before settling back on red. She hadn't been looking for him, hadn't been looking at anything except her new movie posters. So his sudden appearance in the room, accompanied by a sudden tune in her head, was more startling than it should have been. It was a good thing she was in the middle of drinking; rather than scream, Frisk coughed up some soda over her pajama front, and Sans laughed raspily.

"sup, pipsqueak?" he said, lowering his voice when Frisk gave him a glare. "you wanna come over and see how neo new home's getting along?"

Wiping her mouth, Frisk nodded. "That's actually exactly what I wanted. How's the weather over there?"

"cloudy," Sans said with a dry smile, as if she needn't have even asked. "where to, kid? guessing you don't want to be smack dab in the middle of town."

"I actually don't care. Wherever you were last." They'd end up in the middle of town at some point anyway.

Sans' smile became a little less of one, though, and it irritated her. "you sure you wanna leave it to me like that, 'cause..."

"Ugh just take us there already!"

He'd grumbled. And then Sans held on to her as he did his... thing. His weird, disorienting thing where his eye flashed and they both vanished without a sound or any ado at all, and then suddenly there they were in an entirely different place. His shortcut thing.

The melody in her head shifted to accompany the change.

They ended up beneath a sky so dark it was threatening rain again, in front of a house that was bright and colorful. It was one of several that stood out in a half-built city (well, city was stretching it, as all of it was small enough that no humans would be able to glimpse it above the forest line) with grey Romanesque buildings that looked like they'd been made centuries ago.

Even Papyrus and Sans' house was that same log cabin, though at least the snow was gone. Frisk kind of figured that the monsters would update their look a bit instead of making carbon copies of their old houses on the surface. But then, she did see some (colorless) neon lighting gracing those Romanesque buildings that wasn't there before, so that was a... start.

The building that they were right in front of, though, that made Frisk's heart sink.

"You were visiting _Toriel_?" She said, with a grimace.

Sans fluffed his jacket with an aggressive jerk and put his hands in his pockets. "don't you got friends you visit in your spare time, squirt? she's not as bad as you think she is."

"She's exactly as bad as I think she is."

"well she's gotten better, how bout." He looked at her through only one half-lidded eye, the other one closing. "bein on the surface is doing a lot of people good. matter of fact she's hoping you'll visit sometime if you ever feel like it. no pressure or anything."

Frisk rubbed her arm and looked out towards the bright front door, imagining how familiar it must look inside. "-I don't want to," she mumbled, as if Toriel were an old and awkward relative.

Sans smirked. "yeah see, you shoulda picked a place."

Neither of them had an umbrella; as she scowled at Sans, Frisk became terribly aware of the fact that the clouds above were so heavy that it was surely about to pour rain on them. She opened her mouth to say that they could go right into Asgore's castle then, when a noise from off to the side killed the words.

"Hmmm... hmm, hmm..."

Toriel peeked out at them from behind her door, opening it only a little. Frisk could see just a bit of her face - one yellowed eye and her fanged mouth - and the edges of her robe, which wasn't tattered and covered in soot anymore. That was all the child saw before looking away, crossing her arms across her chest.

The door opened a little wider. "Sans, I thought that it might be you coming back. Did you forget anything?" Quiet, deliberate words.

Sans was sweating again, looking from Toriel to Frisk as his permanent grin scrunched like an accordion. Frisk hoped he was already regretting his decision. "nnnnwell, uh. just helpin the kid with somethin."

"Oh? Is it something I can help wi-"

"No."

Toriel's head tilted gently and she closed her mouth at the response, the door opening just a little bit wider. Frisk's heart was starting to make some noise; she prayed, as she tightened her crossed arms, that the door wouldn't open any further. Not because she was afraid anymore, but just because. She cleared her throat. "I don't need anything from you."

"Perhaps not," was Toriel's reply. "I do not think you would appreciate any snacks from me either, oh dear. Well I hope it is nothing serious."

This time, Frisk waited until just after she had finished speaking. "It's not. What have you been doing since you moved up here?"

"Well, recently," she began, but then a small rumble interrupted her. "Goodness. Perhaps you had best come inside."

Sans had taken one step towards Toriel's front door when Frisk said, "No." He emitted a soft harsh breath like a sigh, but Frisk didn't budge. "You can tell me out here."

"Mmm," Toriel directed a troubled hum to the sky, but did not press the issue. That eased Frisk's shoulders a little, though a faint rattling from Sans betrayed his own tension. "Alright. I did not do very much at first, aside from make a comfortable place to live for myself. Being - on the edge of town as I am, I have not gotten many visitors. Mm, Asgore did drop by the once, when he heard I was in town, but he did not repeat it.

"Recently," she added as she gave a glance towards the forest that surrounded Neo New Home, "there have been a few disturbances. I do my best to take care of them, with the others."

Ah, there it was. Frisk didn't expect it to come from Toriel specifically, but it probably wouldn't have mattered who she asked. "Disturbances?"

"Humans who wander into the forest." She said it so matter-of-factly, with her big white hands pressed together. "In the interests of keeping things simple, we have been having to drive them out without our revealing our existence, rather than..." Suddenly her gaze returned to Frisk. "Repeat the mistakes of the past."

Calling them mistakes went a long way, but Frisk wondered how many of the monsters here would have that same wording. "So you just scare them away. Right?"

"oh shit," Sans cut in with a chuckle, forcing himself back into the conversation, "i got in on this one time when this human uh, i dunno what they were but they were having their friend record themselves with a phone and sayin all this spooky shit about ghosts and dead people living in the forest, like some kinda news anchor. so me and papyrus took off our-"

"SANS please! That story is too lewd for a child!" Toriel shrieked, her eyes opening wide and nostrils flaring; although Frisk jumped half an inch at the sudden volume, Sans started laughing uproariously.

Frisk's face twisted into a scowl, starting to burn; not because she thought that a skeleton could be 'lewd' (if the word meant what she suspected it did,) but because of the feeling she was starting to get that this was all a big joke, one that she'd been locked out of. She stuck her hands in her pockets. "You guys are idiots. You know that people are talking about you over in Ebottstadt right? Even at _my_ school."

His guffaws fading out, Sans peeked at her through his fingers. "eh?"

"They're talking about you. Kids in my school, people in the news-" She was keeping up with the news more often since her own name appeared in it, shortly after returning home. "-Just, in general. You guys are like yetis or fairies to them."

Sans and Toriel exchanged looks. "ehhh, talking's okay. i'm okay with bein a cryptid. just don't want 'em to get_ too_ close, right? not till we're ready to make ourselves known."

Her stomach went cold for an instant. "You want to make yourselves known?"

"Truthfully it is up to Asgore, but I expect we will need to someday," Toriel mused. "Once everyone has moved above ground, it will become harder and harder to hide our existence."

Not everyone was up yet, and Neo New Home was already too big for the clearing it had been started in; on her last visit, Frisk had seen buildings overtaking the village at the base of Mt. Ebott. Knowing this, that wasn't exactly an unreasonable position. The child didn't respond, but just stared off somewhere adjacent to the monsters she was talking to.

Rain started dripping in a couple haphazardly placed dots, and then turned into a drizzle on the three of them. Eyesockets empty, Sans made a noise like halfway between a sigh and clearing his throat. "aaaah, can we go inside now?"

"I assure you that it is dry, and safe, inside," said Toriel, gesturing towards her entryway as if there was no reason the child would possibly have to stay out.

Frisk didn't think she hated Toriel anymore, but she hated that. "You can go in. I have to go talk to people."

Sans cracked his shoulders and looked to be about to speak; before he could, Toriel took a step outside her door and said, "Oh, do not walk through this rain by yo-"

"Bye_._"

No waiting for Sans, no waiting for Toriel. The child picked up her feet and started squelching down the half-paved path deeper into Neo New Home. She thought she knew the way well enough even if Sans wasn't playing the taxi.

Now that it was properly raining, there weren't a crowd of monsters outside - the ones she saw were scrambling to get shelter. That was how she preferred it; so many would stop and stare, or wave, or otherwise do something that forced her to pay attention to them.

She didn't quite recognize most of them. A lot of the monsters that had moved to Neo New Home were the ones that lived in New Home and Waterfall, the monsters of Hotland finding it too cold above ground and the monsters of Snowdin finding it colder up on the mountaintop. Frisk wondered if they would start coming down here, especially when the seasons changed.

Well, a few monsters she recognized. When Frisk saw Alphys scurrying down the street towards her new lab, the child ducked between two buildings just in time to avoid being spotted in the rain, and then watched her pass. She wasn't alone; back in his boxy outer shell - albeit now on a well-built pair of legs instead of a single wheel - Mettaton was racing after her, sparking and flashing and saying something about waterproofing.

The sight made Frisk giggle. She waited for about a minute to see if anyone else would be coming through, and when no one did she stuck her hands in her pockets and kept going. By now she was already soaked, so there was no point to hurrying and getting out of the rain.

Asgore's house loomed in the center of town, as much as it could loom and remain inconspicuous to humans. Pointed spires, cracked stone, jagged edges, and a long solid shadow that it cast all around it. Despite that, it wasn't nearly as big and imposing as the castle underground, and inside it wasn't quite as unpleasant. Although Frisk had only entered it once. Now, she knocked with the ornate metal knocker and stood in wait, arms folded.

If Flowey were here, he'd probably say something like it was a bad idea to talk to Asgore, and she could have told him to shut up and stop being such a chicken.

The double doors cracked open and Asgore peered out from between them, in much the same motions as Toriel. It was hard to tell, especially with it being night, but he might have been wearing pajamas. "Frisk?" he rumbled, deep and cautious and probably tired. "Howd'you do. I was not expecting you tonight."

"I just wanted to check some things."

Asgore looked off somewhere to the side, and then took a step back. "Will you come in?"

"No, that's okay." No glares, she simply shook her head.

But that seemed to be the wrong thing to say, for his brow furrowed and he made what sounded like an irritated growl. "Hrrr, what is it?"

So she scowled, after all. "First off, have you been attacking humans that come around here?"

"Driving them away, you mean. Not attacking."

"The - okay, then." Frisk swallowed her sentence, stumbling over it. "Then next fucking - question, are you planning to tell the humans about you guys too?"

His bloodshot, yellowed eyes crinkled. "Eventually, they will learn of us either way. I do prefer that it happen on my terms, yes."

"When are you gonna do that? Like, in a week, or a month, or?"

Rather than reply right away, Asgore straightened up and looked upwards. He curled his index finger before his lips in thought, uttering a low growl that may have just been his own breathing. Through all this, his expression barely changed... but that was normal for him. "At our rate of progress, it would be best to do something about it in the next month or so, yes."

Another cold anxiety spike. Frisk gripped the ends of her sweater. "Isn't it kind of _stupid_ that you spend all that time making humans afraid of you like-" What word had Sans used?" "-cryptids, and then you assholes all come out announcing yourselves as being_ real_ scary... cryptids, to them?"

"Well, I had originally planned to kill all of you," Asgore said in a monotone. "This is a step back from that."

Frisk chewed the inside of her cheek. "And you're not worried that they're gonna call the military on you guys or something?"

"That has as much likelihood of happening if we stay quiet and try not to be found out." A low sigh. "I am not bothered by any possibility, as long as we do not get trapped under another barrier.

"I do understand you. Despite the occasional... child to fall under the mountain, our kingdom has not interacted with human society in hundreds of years. Maybe if we..." He looked like he was about to say something more, and Frisk cringed. But he didn't finish the thought, only tilting his head at her. Then the moment passed. "Was that all?"

She shrugged. "I just really think you should be more careful about scaring the living daylights out of people. And telling people where you are and that you're free."

"I will take your suggestions under advisement. Goodnight, Frisk."

"Wait I was gonna-" The doors to Asgore's house closed, and Frisk was left out, alone again in the rain. She screwed up her face. "Okay then, asshole."

What was the world going to be like in a couple months, when the secret was out and monsters were declared real? As Frisk turned around and tried to shake her head of the music of Neo New Home, she pictured tanks and dust, or mayoral meetings and throngs of curious people. Angry protests and skirmishes that turn into real fights, or else celebrations and her new friends all over the news. Would they live with humans? No, that didn't seem to be the case with even the monsters in the blue world, and if anything these ones liked to keep to themselves even more.

It turned her gut. And yet, it was Asgore's problem. Not hers. Even though it had been enough of her problem to drag her all the way out here just to check they weren't killing campers. Not hers.

She had already said it, right? Just because she set the monsters free - just because she had some monster friends - that didn't mean she had to worry about what happened to them after that. Just because the other Frisk, Blue Frisk, decided to become the royal ambassador for their own world's monsters, that didn't mean _she_ had to. It wasn't her problem.

But it kept rising up in her mind.

Like the chill from having soaked clothes. She hadn't been thinking that one through; when she returned home there would be no way to explain their condition to the teacher. Frisk shook her wet head and continued on.

Maybe she could just drop by Papyrus' house and dry off there. So with that idea in mind, Frisk whirled around and started walking. Admittedly, she wasn't as sure how to find it from where she was now. But what was the harm in getting lost in this grey city for a bit? The caffeine would keep her awake for a while.

While she walked she thought she'd have some respite after all, as the rain suddenly stopped falling and the night sky grew clear.

But in the next instant it was raining again.

And that wasn't the only thing to shift.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I hope that weather thing has happened enough in this series that it's clear what it means by now hmm

**Next Chapter:** World of Grey


	4. World of Grey

In another world, Sans and Papyrus were nice. Though they, Papyrus especially, asked a lot of awkward questions, they didn't mind Wing Dings' face. They didn't mind his voice. They didn't mind his hands. They didn't mind any of the other things that set him apart from the few other skeletons they'd met besides themselves.

In another world, Wing Dings didn't mind those things so much either. Papyrus didn't mind sharing with Sans, didn't hate Wing Dings for taking his room.

In another world Grandpa Semi didn't use his cane for anything more than wild gestures and Wing Dings didn't hide in his room and pretend he couldn't hear Sans and Papyrus getting disciplined, disciplined in a way that he, as a guest, apparently wasn't to be _as long as he was good._ Uncle Aster didn't use his fists for anything but emphatic slamming on desks and counter tops, and Wing Dings didn't flinch and hide in his cloak.

Although in this world, too, it was still dark and cold in New Home.

In this world, too, there were still rules. This world was still a prison.

He knew so because his father's job was to make it as comfortable a prison as possible. Or, that was how he described it in his own morbid terms, helping to build houses for the monsters trickling across the few places they called "towns" underground. New Home was a particular one, started some time ago and due for expansion as more and more monsters started moving in. The design of the buildings and streets were fine, but based on tainted memories.

And without much light, the grey buildings were awfully dreary.

Wing Dings stared out the kitchen window at it as he tapped his pencil against the table, a half-finished sheet of problems going neglected. If their whole world was a prison, it only made sense that it was going to come out looking gloomy.

Like the gas lamps and dimly glowing crystals that were all to light their way. It was brighter in Hotland and Snowdin, but places like Waterfall and New Home itself were almost impossible to navigate sometimes. Sometimes books or CDs would wash up in the dump that talked about electricity, something brighter and evidently far more plentiful than gas or batteries, and less strenuous to obtain than magic lights. It would be nice to have something like that.

Not that he minded doing homework in low lighting; too bright would give him a headache.

"Hey, what's that?" Wing Dings jerked his head back around. He hadn't even heard the door open, but apparently Sans and Grandpa Semi were back, Sans smiling innocently at him from over the edge of the table.

"OH IT'S JUST MY HOMEWORK FOR-" Wing Dings started, before catching Sans lack of comprehension. Oops! He hadn't taught him that much wingdings yet. "IT'S HOMEWORK."

Sans inched along the table until he was able to get a better look. "But school hasn't even started..."

"YES." Wing Dings hesitated, translating himself in his head, and added, "EXTRA CREDIT."

"Doing that bad in school huh?" Sans giggled at Wing Dings' horrified expression, as if it was of utmost importance that his cousin not think he was a slackoff.

"NO. I'M - DOING VERY WELL. IT'S AN... ACCELERATED COURSE."

Sans picked the sheet up in both hands and squinted at the problems. "What is this anyway? Looks hard."

"YES." And then Wing Dings sputtered, "PHYSICS."

Off in the living room, Papyrus was showing Grandpa Semi a new trick he learned that involved putting dental floss through his eyes. Sans' gaze was still fixed to the sheet of paper, even as Wing Dings gently took it back. "I wanna try," he said.

"TAKE PHYSICS!" Wing Dings stuck his eraser end in his crooked, certainly-not-at-all-creepy wound-shaped mouth. "If you took physics next year you could probably get a head start on Calculus too, but that assumes that you'd do well in it; you haven't taken algebra or geometry and this is hard even for me, especially because a lot of it is based on human textbooks that wash down here which are-"

"What?"

Again that blank expression in Sans' smile. Wing Dings closed one eye - the half lidded one, which was the only eye he _could_ close all the way. He was determined to get himself understood before his stay at Grandpa Semi's was over.

For right now, though, he only smiled at Sans. After a moment his cousin said, "I bet I could take physics if I really wanted to."

Wing Dings considered this for a moment, and then returned his gaze to his worksheet. Only about a third done. He leaned towards Sans. "WANT TO SEE-SOMETHING FUN?"

"Yeah!"

Wing Dings' eyelights flickered, and he stood up from the table with a squeak. He only needed a handful of things, all of them in the cabinets. A fork and spoon, a cup, and a toothpick. Sans turned around in circles as he rifled around, observing as if he were a teacher, and Wing Dings was beaming. "WE DID LOTS OF LITTLE TRICKS LIKE THIS IN SCHOOL! I always like the experiments more than the worksheets, Ms. Bits says that it's because I'm more of a HANDS ON person! BUT this is a lot simpler than calculating velocity anyway..." he said, mostly to himself since Sans could only understand a couple of the letters.

As Wing Dings slotted the fork tines over the bowl of the spoon together, Sans said, "Are you gonna set stuff on fire?"

"NO SETTING THINGS ON FIRE!" Grandpa Semi called from the living room, his boom of a voice making the boys jump. But that was his only interference for now. Wing Dings shrugged at his cousin. Then he carefully stuck one end of the toothpick in the middle of the entwined utensils, so that it almost resembled someone holding a candle with both hands.

Finally, he balanced the center of the toothpick on the rim of the glass, utensil side out. When he was sure that it was going to stay up, he released it and drew both hands far away from it. While the toothpick wobbled, and the utensils it was stuck between bobbed, it stayed balanced on the rim of the cup despite lacking a counterweight.

A simple trick, but Sans 'ooohed' it all the same. "How are you getting it to do that? Do you know blue magic already?"

"NO! BLUE, BLUE... BLUE MAGIC CAN'T DO THAT," said Wing Dings. "JUST PHYSICS. I wish Grandpa Semi hadn't said we can't burn things, because when you burn the toothpick IT'S KIND OF AMAZING HOW IT DOESN'T TIP OVER EVEN THOUGH YOU'D THINK IT WOULD? BUT THE FLAME JUST GOES OUT AFTER A WHILE I WATCHED IT HAPPEN. AND THAT'S EVEN IF YOU BURN BOTH ENDS. Well you have to work hard to get it right, but still-"

He cleared his throat. Sans was looking more confused than impressed again. "CENTER OF. GRAVITY. IT'S." God this was so hard, he grasped the pencil he'd discarded earlier and clicked on it with his fingertips. "LOWER THAN... THE TOOTHPICK'S, PIVOT POINT. FROM THE CURVED UTENSILS. SO DOESN'T FALL!"

"Ooooh, actual gravity." said Sans. Then he tilted the fork and spoon with one finger, until it had completely capsized off the side of the glass. His smile grew. "Hey, that was pretty cool."

And then, just as his cousin was sitting back down to stare at the number problems, Sans said, "You wanna hear a joke?"

A joke? Puns and all manners of wordplay filled the kingdom of monsters, whether clever or otherwise. But Wing Dings hesitated. He cocked his head to the side, tapping the eraser of his pencil repeatedly on the table. "OH. SURE?"

Sans smiled wide. "Knock knock," he said. Wing Dings looked to the door, and didn't say anything. Sans' smile faltered, but he pressed onwards with a small gesture. "You gotta say 'who's there'. Like you're gonna answer the door."

"CAN'T I - LOOK THROUGH-" A frown. "THE PEEPHOLE?"

"N-no." Sans' smile was still a smile, but it more closely resembled a frown. Wing Dings shut his mouth. "You gotta ask who's there or the joke won't work."

"WHY?"

"Come on, just ask."

"WH WHO'S THERE?"

Then the smile turned back into a real one, and with his eyes bright Sans replied, "Boo."

"BOO WHO?"

"Oh gee," Sans said, "you don't have to cry about it." Wing Dings blinked, checking his eyes for tears, and he quickly added, "It's a pun. Cause you said boo hoo and all. Get it?"

Halting. "BUT I SAID-" And then the pun clicked, and Wing Dings put a hand to his face. "OHH." Hands clinging to the table, Sans was smiling brightly again, and Wing Dings laughed almost from his cousin's enthusiasm alone. "I WANT TO TRY."

The younger skeleton bounced up and down on his feet. "Okay, shoot."

Over in the living room, Papyrus and Grandpa Semi had turned to look their way somewhat, with Papyrus all done showing off his various skull tricks. "DING DONG," said Wing Dings, with careful enunciation.

"Huh?"

Now it was his turn to explain. "DOORBELL."

"Ohh."

"DING DONG!"

"Who's there?"

"...INSURANCE SALESMAN."

Sans narrowed his eyes, as if trying to look beyond them to take a peek at the punchline. "Insurance salesman who?"

"YOU'LL YOU'LL SLEEP EASIER AT NIGHT KN KNOWING YOU'RE COVERED FOR THE WORST TO HAPPEN," said Wing Dings.

And that sounded right in his head, but it didn't sound right when it came out of his mouth. Was it because most of it was in aster? It was wingdings in his head. He twitched his fingers and clasped his hands together.

But no sooner had his anxiety risen than was Sans laughing across the table, a giggle that spread his permanent smile wide across his face. And Wing Dings tilted his head, just watching it and suddenly grinning, himself.

It wasn't to last, though. Movement came in from the outer reaches of his vision. "OOH, YOU CALL THAT A JOKE?" boomed Grandpa Semi from the living room, charging to the table with Papyrus scurrying behind him. "THAT'S NOTHING! LET AN OLD MASTER TELL ONE!"

"You're no old master, you're just an old bones," Sans replied, his eyes still crinkled.

Grandpa Semi harrumphed and brought himself up to his full height, before quickly returning to his usual stoop. "NOW LISTEN HERE, WHIPPERSNAPPER!" He banged his cane against the floor. Wing Dings pulled his hood over his head. "THIS YOUNG MAN WALKS INTO A BAR WITH A DOG FOLLOWING AT HIS HEELS..."

For the rest of the evening after that, it was Grandpa Semi telling the jokes; when he told jokes, he made long involved stories. They sometimes involved surface things none of the children had ever heard of, or monster things that they were too young to get, like alcohol for starters. But no one wanted to hurt his feelings, so they each laughed anyway.

Unlike the doorbell joke, apparently. That had been Wing Dings' first shot and only Sans had laughed, in the end. He would have to make a better one. Someday.

It joined his swirl of thoughts on school, the Underground, and this family.

Uncle Aster would drop by on some evenings, just to check on how things were going. He didn't question if his child was getting along all right, he was certain he was. He didn't get mad when Wing Dings occasionally slipped up his speech, he would gently encourage him to get it right next time. He was happy to see the progress that Wing Dings was making on his extra studies. He was ecstatic to see the progress Sans and Papyrus were making on their own schooling, but Wing Dings didn't take that personally. In this world.

Each time, Wing Dings would miss him for an hour after he left. Then that feeling would vanish, and he'd start getting bored. Grandpa Semi didn't let them go outside unless it was with him, and he only went out when there was something to do, like shopping. But Wing Dings didn't like the monotony of picking out the same things over and over again.

One time Semi left Wing Dings alone to watch Papyrus while he went out with Sans to pick new clothes, and Wing Dings was left to contemplate the undeniable sameness of his own black cloak, warm as it was.

Papyrus was a reds person, even in a world like this where monsters wore all kinds of colors. Red is the color of heroics; that was the reason, he thought he had heard someone say. But he wasn't sure if someone Papyrus' age could really be called "heroic." What sort of feats was a mere child capable of?

"HEY," he said, attracting his younger cousin's attention immediately. "CAN YOU DO MAGIC?"

'What!" Papyrus, who had been in the middle of playing with a toy car, bounded over to him. "I can do magic! What kind of magic?"

A smirk. "BULLETS." To demonstrate, Wing Dings summoned a small bone attack into his palm, holding it out for the other to see. It was crooked and rough, like something had been gnawing on it. "CAN YOU DO... THAT YET?"

"No oh my gosh!" Papyrus reached out for the bone attack and Wing Dings quickly yanked it away, fearing even the 1 HP's worth of damage it might do to the touch. Papyrus retreated. "Um, I haven't tried that yet. But! Oh, Grandpa says we can start practicing soon! When school starts! I can't wait!"

"HM. I BET YOU COULD DO IT NOW IF YOU REALLY WANTED TO, IF YOU FOCUSED ENOUGH. MAGIC IS SUPPOSED TO BE ALL ABOUT WHAT YOU WANT TO DO, YOU KNOW. I wonder what would happen if it was something other than a regular bone. A bone ball? A skull? Maybe a foot." To Papyrus he said, "DON'T WAIT. TRY NOW!"

Papyrus put a finger to his not-lips. "What! Right now?" When Wing Dings nodded, he said, "Okay! How do I do it?"

Using the explanation he'd learned in school was impossible in aster, so Wing Dings replied, "MAGIC IS. WHAT YOU WANT. SO JUST... WANT IT. LIKE THIS." To demonstrate, Wing Dings repeatedly brought his bone bullet in and out of sight, moving it from hand to hand, gently encouraging his magic in and out of the shape. As Papyrus was noting this, he quickly added, "BUT TRY DIFFERENT. FROM MINE."

"Oh! Okay!" But Papyrus' enthusiasm didn't mean that he was going to be able to do something immediately. He focused on his hand, like Wing Dings appeared to have done, staring as hard as his little eyesockets could muster. His fingers twitched, but there was no magic manifesting within them.

That wasn't a surprise. The first time Wing Dings summoned his first bullet, he was a little bit older than Papyrus was right now. It was hard, it had been small and useless. It was like flexing a muscle that he had never flexed before; even though expressing yourself that way was supposed to come naturally to monsters, it was as hard and as time consuming as learning to walk.

To the point that even now, he was still stumbling around with his bullet patterns, which would easily be evident if he were to summon more than one.

So, a minute passed.

Then another.

And another.

And Wing Dings asked Papyrus if he wanted to take a break and get a snack, but Papyrus adamantly shook his head. He'd made up his mind to do this! He was going to make a bullet!

So another minute passed.

And then several minutes passed.

And Wing Dings was starting to get bored, until...

A little sparkling bone unfolded into existence from the wooden floorboards.

Papyrus screeched, and Wing Dings, whose head had been drooping, almost fell over from the noise. "I DID IT! I DID IT! DID YOU SEE THAT?" The bone folded back down into the ground, not having moved much at all, but Papyrus was jumping up and down. "I DID IT I DID IT I DID IT!"

"You did it? How did you do that?" Wing Dings leaned forward hard, pressing his hands into the ground. His eyelights searched Papyrus' face as the child wiggled with triumph. "YOU DID. VERY FAST."

"YEAH! Um! Although I couldn't make it different. 'Cause I was copying you."

"That's okay do it again, again," Wing Dings said.

"Okay!" The bone rose again from the floor. Just a tiny little thing, but it was there, and it was magic. It didn't move but it didn't tremble, either, and Wing Dings wondered what it felt like. Papyrus scooped it up from the floor as if it were a kitten or a puppy that wanted holding, squealing. "I can't believe it! I didn't need to wait at all! Wait till I show Grandpa and Sans!"

Wing Dings sat up straighter and summoned his own bullet back into his palm, comparing the two with a squint of one eye. Papyrus' bullet was neater. "We should see what else you can do."

Once Papyrus understood, it turned out that what else he could do was "nothing," at least so far. He couldn't slide the bullet across the floor or arc it through the air - it wasn't much of a bullet, then. And trying to make the bone any different only ended in headaches and confusion.

But that didn't matter once Semi and Sans came back home. Then there was only pride, and getting to go out to eat for dinner.

And that was nice.

There were twinges of feelings, unsatisfying or unpleasant ones that Wing Dings pressed to the side. During the day it was fine.

* * *

Then there was the night, when the monotony was at a high and Wing Dings' piling thoughts were overwhelming. It became hard to sleep, and when he slept it was never long enough, which had also been the issue at home come to think of it. And he was pretty sure that sometimes he saw his own reflection in the ceiling of Papyrus' room, even if Grandpa Semi banged on it once with his cane and said that whatever he saw was gone now.

One night, after weeks and weeks where he was sure it was just his imagination, it appeared again and it did not go away. Wing Dings lay in bed staring at the ceiling, suddenly choked and curling up his hands into fists from tension. The face that stared at him, one good eye and one bad eye, did not change and did not sweat like he did. It was just there. Wing Dings thought that he might die (or at least, scream really loudly) if it actually said something.

But instead of saying something, it changed shape. Slowly, at first, to the point where Wing Dings only realized it once he'd been staring at it for half an hour. It turned completely white, obscuring the facial features he'd recognized as his own, and suddenly it looked more like an orb than a face.

Then it fell from the ceiling.

Wing Dings screamed and vaulted out of bed, expecting a smack. No such smack came. But as he was rising, a blob of white blurred across his vision in an arc, a single bounce, and it disappeared through the door out of the room. The ceiling was empty of any anomalous shapes, and the door was still quite intact, no trace of the strange thing remaining anywhere in the room.

Yet, that didn't mean that it hadn't been real; Wing Dings pulled the hood of his cloak over his head and crept outside.

It took only a few seconds to locate the thing out in the living room, and no sooner had he laid eyes on it than it had moved out the next door, sliding like it was being gently brushed aside by an invisible hand. Again, the door was fine even after it had disappeared. But now it was surely outside.

Wing Dings clattered to the front door and unlocked the knob. Outside it was darker than during the day, just by virtue of the lamplight that illuminated the colorless streets being turned down or snuffed out. Yet he thought that if he looked close enough, maybe...

"Hey."

Wing Dings gave a start. He must not have been quiet enough. Sans stood in the living room watching him, and then he scrambled over. "Are you going out?"

He grasped the knob tightly, smiling sheepishly over at his cousin. He was pretty sure that question had an obvious answer.

"...Hey we're not supposed to go out without Grandpa, that's against the rules," Sans said, pulling on Wing Dings' sleeve. And when he said it, Wing Dings spent a long moment looking at him as if to convey through gaze alone that yes, he knew that part.

But Sans looked unconvinced by the look alone, so he said, "I know. I-I saw. Something. Go out there." Tonight his voice felt just as halting in wingdings as it was in aster.

And he was so glad that Sans seemed to understand by now, because he also looked towards the door and whispered, "Saw what? An intruder?"

"I guess." But he didn't think so. He inclined his head towards the open door. "It went out there."

Sans tugged on his sleeve again. "So it's gone right? So we don't have to worry about it." His permanent smile twisted into a grimace. "Besides, maybe you were dreaming. Come on, let's just go back to bed."

"Let's?" Wing Dings' mouth curled into a smile, but immediately he shook his head and turned back. Even forgetting the strange thing that he might have dreamed up. He already wanted to go outside. He didn't want to go back to sleep. He already wanted to break a rule. "You can go back to sleep. I'll just go out and check for a little while."

Sans grimaced harder.

But Wing Dings was already walking out as if it were natural, his black cloak sweeping the threshold. He didn't see that white shape anymore, but that was fine - if it was still around, it couldn't have gotten too far, right? And while he was looking for it, he could get to see the rest of this city. (Maybe he could even go out somewhere where there was actual color, if he was quick enough. Someplace warm like Hotland.)

He almost closed the door, but Sans' little body stopped him; his little cousin briefly got in the way to step outside next to him, ill at ease but no longer protesting. "I'll help you look, okay? And make sure we don't get lost."

Gaster smiled wide. "_Let's_ go."

He closed the door and that was it. He went forward with a determined, albeit crooked expression, searching for that whiteness in the deep shadows of New Home. Sans followed, constantly turning back towards the little house they lived in as it receded from view. "Okay but we're not gonna get in trouble, right?"

"We won't get in trouble."

* * *

In the sputtering rain, Frisk found a grey door where it wasn't supposed to be.

* * *

**Next Chapter:** The Dummied-Out Content


	5. The Dummied-Out Content

She knew it wasn't supposed to be there because when she on a whim had tried to open it, her hand went right through the knob.

"What the _fuck?_" It happened the second, and third, time she tried it too. Although the door looked real in every respect, right now it was impossible for the child to pull it open or even so much as twist the knob. It wasn't that it was a ghost door. Her hand was hitting something each time it went through. It was sort of like having a jolt of electricity after touching something you weren't supposed to.

But she just... couldn't interact with it.

Frisk rubbed her hand and glared hard at the door. It reminded her of something she hadn't thought about in a while, something that happened before she'd broken the barrier or even gotten started on it.

Now, the door may have just been grey because Neo New Home itself was pretty grey. Still, Frisk took a look around it for creepy grey monsters, of the kind that had attacked her so long ago. She tapped her foot on the ground, as if expecting it to be hollow, or maybe hoping that a certain flower she hadn't seen in forever would reappear and explain this to her. So far, no results. The only strange thing was the door.

A deep voice called out to her, "Hey swee-"

"_AH_," Frisk jumped back, her eyes searching more wildly through the rain, and her frying pan was out and in her hands before she knew it.

"-theart." The voice was coming from above her. Frisk let the frying pan droop, shielding the rain from her face with one hand, and saw Mettaton sitting upon the offending building. He was no longer in his boxy form, but in the human one with reds and golds that lay underneath, shapely legs crossed. He held a wide umbrella that created a little curtain of rain all around him, remaining completely dry on the inside.

Frisk had never been able to rely on an umbrella to keep her dry in her entire life. She took a deep breath to slow her startled heart. "Mettaton? I just saw you with Alphys."

"And I just saw you, not with Alphys!" he replied with a sharp, metal-coated smile. His voice crackled and rose at odd intervals, like his voice box was malfunctioning again. "The poor dear needed some alone time so I thought that you might have had the right idea."

Frisk slowly unequipped the burnt pan, squinting at how once again Mettaton was above her while they talked. "Well I wasn't trying to avoid her."

"The way you ducked down that alley told a different story, darling."

"I was trying to avoid everybody." Mettaton flinched at that, so Frisk continued quickly, "-This building. Um, do you know what it's for?"

Readjusting his position, Mettaton leaned over the side to take a look, metal eyebrow raising. "I believe this is just a warehouse. Although I can't say whom it belongs to. Did you need something from it?"

"I'm just wondering why I can't get this door open. I can't even touch it."

For half a second, as Mettaton froze, Frisk had a choking thought that maybe she was the only one who could see the door, that she was crazy. But then he replied, "That one there? Yes, I saw that. I thought maybe you were having some trouble turning the knob. Child-proof locks and all that?"

"I'm old enough to get through child-proof locks!"

He shrugged. "I'm a happy bachelor, I wouldn't know, darling. You don't think that it might be... painted on?"

"It looks real from where I'm standing." But Frisk reached out a hand and tried to stroke the broad side of it; something was definitely there, and it gave her another jolt. She hissed. "It's real."

"But you can't open it?"

"I can't even knock on it."

"That's..." Mettaton's expression twitched, waning. "Suspicious. I would probably keep away from doors like that, if I were you. Wouldn't want you ending up some place you shouldn't."

Frisk looked from the door to Mettaton, who had resumed his sitting position. "Like a warehouse?"

"I'm just saying, I think one trip through the rabbit hole is quite enough for you."

The last "rabbit hole" in question was a big gaping hole in a cave covered in things to trip over, which led to a horrible kingdom of sometimes-awful people that wanted to kill kids. Unless the warehouse was hiding more subterranean worlds, Frisk doubted that it would be the same problem.

But she wouldn't say that to Mettaton. Instead, as she poked at the door with her frying pan, she said, "So do you know about Asgore's... plan to reveal you all to the humans?"

Mettaton's face lit up, almost literally with his neon eyes. "Oh you know it! I can't wait to be in a human city for the first time! I've been practicing so that I can give them only the best performances!"

"Well, I'm sure they'll like... you..." Frisk uttered, weakly smiling at him. "Especially if you use that body. And not the weird other one you keep using."

He dismissed her last statement with a wave. "That's for my monster audience, dear, you're not the target demographic for that one. But! How sweet of you to say!" His expression relaxed, turning contemplative. "I do hope they like it. I hope they really like it. Even if I can't change everything about the body I have. ...I think I like what I've got now, myself."

"Oh." Frisk stared up blankly. "That's good, Mettaton."

"Isn't it? ...But still, I can't wait to take this body for a spin where it really matters..." Mettaton turned his head and looked wistfully out to where the human city of Ebottstadt stood, or at least where Frisk assumed it was. She couldn't see with the trees in the way.

That discomfort curled again in her stomach; Frisk hung her head so she wouldn't have to see that hopeful expression and think how it was her fault that that dream of his wasn't fulfilled yet.

She also didn't want to look too hard at him and think of electronic hearts, chainsaws, and spiky boots. He was going back to talking above, voice airy, "In the meantime I guess that-"

_*Ping!*_

"Wait." Frisk dug for her phone. "Uh uhhhh got a message."

"Someone's texting you at this time of night? Is it a fan?"

On the screen of her phone, it said Message from: sansbutt.

And Frisk grinned. "Sure, kind of."

_hey kiddo. me n my frisk r n th neighborhood f u wntd 2 stop by. jst stopped n grillbyz. unls ur alredi asslp._

The grin got a little bigger. "I gotta go, Mettaton. Sorry I kept you out in the rain."

He was smiling back, albeit with a far more muted expression, his gaze far away like he wasn't done daydreaming yet. "Oh, well it was nice to talk with you, sweetheart. Don't stay up too late now."

"I won't!"

She took a lingering look towards the door, daring it to disappear on her like that grey monster once had. Unlike then, this oddity didn't seem to be going anywhere. Even when she left the immediate area and then turned around and ran back, it stayed the same (albeit she confused Mettaton a little.)

So for the moment she let it be, and ran through the drizzle at top speed to _Grillby'z_.

* * *

"hey grillbz, why so blue?" was what she heard upon entering the bar, the air fraught with the stench of alcohol and damp cigarette smoke. The lighting was cozy, dim but not so much she couldn't see the rest of the bar clearly, and unlike back when everyone was underground she didn't get attacked immediately upon entering.

Somewhere to her left, someone booed. It was populated only by the few monsters so drunk that they didn't want to try venturing home yet.

Them, and her friends from the other world. Blue Sans and Blue Frisk.

The former was in his blue hoodie and looking totally at ease chatting with the bartender, Grillby (who was also blue, but that was just because his fire burned to an oxygenated and well-groomed point, like a flame on a bunsen burner.) The latter sat next to him in a cotton candy colored shirt and yellow rain jacket, the version of herself that was so much cheerier.

"what, you mean i already used that one?" Blue Sans was saying. The both of them were soaked with rain. "alright alright. what happens when wildfire tells you a joke?"

"Hey, guys!" Frisk broke out into a run across the sticky bar floor, and the two out-of-towners swiveled her way at the sound of her voice.

Sans was always smiling, but Blue Frisk broke out into a broad grin, giving a wave. "Hey Fred!"

As Frisk scooted to a stop in front of their bars tools, she frowned. "What are you calling me Fred for?"

Blue Frisk swung her legs back and forth. "I'm trying to think of new nicknames for all of you guys. Like you! Since Red Frisk makes you sound like a palette swap."

"What's a palette swap?"

Sans sucked on the nozzle of a bottle of mustard, while Grillby stared at him with what could have been an exasperated expression; Frisk couldn't quite tell with fire. "don't worry about it, we've been playin' super smash brothers."

"I thought Fred might work 'cause, Red Frisk. Fr-ed."

Frisk stuck her hands in her pockets. "Well don't call me anything from fuckin' Scooby Doo, Frue. Red Frisk is fine."

The way that Blue Frisk's eyes shined whenever she swore made her heart swell. Frisk polished her nails on her sweater like she'd seen in the movies. "Anyway," she added, actually opening her eyes again, "How come you guys are here in the middle of a weeknight? How'd you know I'd be here so late?"

There was a pause. "actually uh," Blue Sans shot Blue Frisk a glance, and Blue Frisk smiled sheepishly. "we didn't know it was night time around here when we left.

"it's the afternoon over in our timeline. crazy huh." Blue Sans was watching Blue Frisk out of the corner of his eye as he spoke, one eye closed and his smile stretched lazily across his face.

Blue Frisk's sheepish smile only grew. She quickly waved one raincoated arm and said, "We-we don't line up I guess, but we knew it'd be raining! ...Cause it's always raining here."

Grillby returned to their place at the bar and deposited a plate with a piping hot hamburger in front of Blue Sans; if he were capable of opening his mouth, and if he had a tongue, Sans would surely be licking his... lips, except he didn't have those either. Blue Frisk turned to Grillby before he had a chance to move away, eyes big. "How do you even go outside like this? Would you die if you got rained on?"

"An umbrella," said Grillby, and then, as he turned to tend to another customer, he added, "No."

Frisk climbed onto a bars tool left intentionally empty between Blue Frisk and Blue Sans; she still was short enough to have to struggle with it, but a slight pull of blue magic on her soul made her lighter and suddenly it was easy. "Thanks."

Blue Sans gave her a thumbs up, and Blue Frisk swiveled back and forth. "So how come your Sans didn't want to come with us? He said he's avoiding the bar right now."

"'sjust that he can't take the heat."

"He's on his second strike," Frisk said, lowering her voice a little with a squint over in Grillby's direction. "And he doesn't know what Grillby's gonna do to him if he gets a third one."

Blue Sans abruptly swallowed. "he, uh. he's still doin that?"

Frisk's expression darkened slightly. Grillby passed by again to deposit two milkshakes in front of the children, and she just pushed her glass back a little. She couldn't drink a monster shake without tasting toothpaste. "I guess. Murder's illegal now though, so... I dunno what the third strike is."

Blue Frisk sipped, and Blue Sans munched. "maybe he should consider a customer loyalty card system or somethin'." At that Frisk snorted, and their fiery bartender ignored them.

The bar gradually assumed an almost gentle, if uneasy, atmosphere. The heat from the front warmed Frisk's frigid body and almost turned the rain in her hair to steam. It also melted her milkshake.

She ended up eating some of the fries that came with Blue Sans' burger, using a last cola can she'd shoved into her inventory as a refresher. A refresher that coated her teeth and throat in gunk as soda did, but still. It was a nice midnight snack, much better than crispy crackers and cheddar.

Through their respective "meals" they chatted. They shared updates. Frisk learned that the New Home in the Blue World was expanding at a healthy rate, although they were having to pay for a lot of power from the humans' city as a consequence.

Whatever bug had occurred in their magic from coming to the surface had sorted itself mostly out, save for Undyne who was still chafing under bed rest. But then, she had other things she was recovering from too.

Frisk noted that it was happening in Neo New Home too, monsters getting sick.

_You chose not to mention that monsters will be revealing themselves to humans soon._

When the food was gone and the chat was over, Blue Sans stood up and said thanks to both Frisks for "buying him lunch" and suddenly vanished with a flash of his left eye. Both Frisks yelped, but evidently too late for him to hear it.

It was lucky, or maybe Blue Sans just knew, that Frisk always had a little bit of g on her. The teachers never took it away from her. In fact, they never took away any of the things she had gathered up over her time underground.

When the children left the bar, they were laughing and joking in identical voices as they got soaked again. Blue Sans was back at Papyrus' house and Frisk called him a motherfucker, which made her Sans proud and her Papyrus mortified.

Catching up wasn't so bad.

By the time Blue Sans and Blue Frisk left the timeline even the extra cola can of caffeine was wearing off, and suddenly Frisk could sharply feel what time it was. She hoped that no one had noticed that she was missing back in town; reminding everyone of how long she was lost and alone around the forests of Mt. Ebott could only excuse so much.

Still, Frisk didn't want to head home just yet; she told Sans she wanted to take another quick walk first. Something else was nagging at her, and it brought her back through the streets of Neo New Home. By then, the rain had turned into a light sprinkling, after having been disrupted one more time by a patch of good, clear nighttime weather.

Somehow it was easy to find her way back to the warehouse, as if she knew the way by heart.

No Mettaton. That was understandable. But also no regular, staring monsters and no creepy grey ones.

Just a solid knob, and a door that unlike last time was now very, very real to the touch. A dark hallway finally greeted her when she opened it.

Frisk took one last look around and, seeing nothing of particular interest outside, went in.

The grey floor crunched under her worn shoes, sticky like the carpet of a movie theater. There was just barely enough light to see by as she went, trace amounts of flourescent lighting from somewhere that bounced along the colorless walls. This could have fit in in Neo New Home, but it definitely wasn't the warehouse. She'd only explore a little bit, and then she'd call Sans or Alphys and see if they knew anything about it.

Maybe if she'd been more on-guard like back underground, she would have thought to prop the door open. Maybe then it wouldn't have gently closed and disappeared behind her. But she wasn't, she didn't, and it did.

Frisk only had a little time to take stock of that, and all the unpleasant fear that accompanied it, before the voice of her head spoke. They often ran through her head so quiet she didn't notice, but now it was as clear as if it was a thought from someone else:

_You feel as though you're being watched._

* * *

**Author's Note:** Frisk your bias is showing smh

**Next Chapter:** What's Wrong is in Red


	6. What's Wrong is in Red

In another world, Wing Dings had thought that he left the house alone. He didn't see anyone following him, not until Sans pounced at him from behind a conveniently thick lamppost, uttering an awful shriek. An awful shriek which Wing Dings ended up mirroring, jumping and stumbling backwards.

As his soul thudded in his chest, his face burned with nonexistent blood when he came to recognize the little white shape of his cousin, laughing at him from beside the post.

"W what are you why are-" WRONG FONT. "-Why are you here?" Wing Dings sputtered, slapping the red out of his own face. "You followed."

"Of course I 'followed,' Wingnut" said Sans, sneering. "I wanted to know where you were going. Grandpa Semi's gonna _kill_ you, we're not allowed to go outside without him, _ever_."

In his enthusiasm to satisfy his curiosity, he'd forgotten all about the rules. Wing Dings whirled back around, towards the direction of the house (or where he thought the house was,) tense at the thought he might see Grandpa Semi barreling out after him any second. But as he did, Sans just sighed. He was sticking his hands irritably into the pockets of his Alien PJs. "I mean, he doesn't _know_ you're out yet but he's going to."

"You... didn't... tell him?" Wing Dings asked, with an inclination of his head.

"No! You know how mad he'd be that I woke him up?" Sans sneered. "So you got until he wakes up on his own to go back home or else you'll be in big trouble."

Bemused, the other folded his arms. "...You too."

"Nah I got it figured out!" Sans jerked his thumb at himself, grinning proudly. "When he finds you I'm gonna tell him that I saw you goin' out and was just tryin' to get you back inside. It's true and it makes me look good."

The lid of Wing Dings' good eye raised like an eyebrow, and he offered just a small snort for his younger cousin's logic. "well i'm not going to get caught, so as long as you don't tell on me you may as well think that."

The streets, meanwhile, were all pretty dark, just a little bit of light given off by the lampposts being all there was to keep monsters from losing their way entirely. There was more light to see and search by during the daytime, or what everyone probably just assumed was daytime, but it would be too late by then. There was also the fact that there were only so many places he could check. Wing Dings knew he couldn't go east, since New Home east of them was still under construction and he knew who would be there, with that.

And how far would he be able to go? Well... he knew approximately how long it would take to go a distance like the one between his own house and Grandpa Semi's. It was about nine o'clock at night now, and generally Grandpa Semi got up at about six every morning, sometimes earlier. If (and this was assuming he didn't lose his nerve or get lost) he kept going for the next five hours-

"Why did you leave anyway?" Sans was saying, poking him on the arm.

Wing Dings tensed right back up. "...I. Saw... a..."

Sans tugged sharply on his sleeve. "If you say it slowly in wing dings I'll get it, it's so _annoying_ how you keep stopping and starting."

Another flush of red on his cheeks; Wing Dings scratched his eye to cover it. "i couldn't sleep. i saw something outside the window, from in the living room."

"What was it?"

"I don't know." He stepped back from Sans, rubbing his arms. "It couldn't speak. But it told me to join it." With a crooked, beckoning hand. In fact, that was all that he could see of it. "I just wanted to find it."

Much to Wing Dings' displeasure, Sans wouldn't let go of his sleeve as he whipped back and forth, looking. "That's it? Are you stupid? What if it was a monster trying to kidnap you?"

"it wasn't."

"How do you know?"

Technically speaking, he didn't. But even so, he hadn't even considered that possibility. Somehow it didn't feel possible. "Kidnappers don't just know when to pop over."

"They do if they stalk you."

"You're the only one who was stalking me," Wing Dings spat, and Sans growled at that. The former proceeded to pull his hood over his face, muttering, "It just wasn't. It feels like I should look for it. Like it's important."

That seemed to do the trick, but Wing Dings didn't like that look he was getting from his cousin; it was the same kind of look that he'd gotten when they first met and Sans had seen everything wrong with him. "Well, do you even know where it went?"

He'd been trying to get to that when Sans jumped out and scared the crap out of him. Wing Dings pressed his hand to his chin, trying to recollect his thought processes from then. East was out of the question already, south was back towards Grandpa Semi's house. Continuing from that... going north felt right.

"_That way,_" he said finally, pointing.

Sans followed his gaze and stuck a little bit closer, eyes narrowing at the shadows with suspicion. But when Wing Dings began walking in that direction, the littler skeleton followed. Although he wasn't following quietly. "So just so _I_ know... What are you hoping we'll get when we find your kidnapper monster?"

"Aside from kidnapped?" Wing Dings offered, peering into a darkened window. Sans didn't laugh at that, though, so he wrung his hands and moved on. "I want to know what it is and why it was there. Why it... called to me."

"You said it couldn't talk."

"Not like that! ...i don't know." How likely was it that the strange beckoning monster had taken refuge in a _Waterfall Fishin Bait Shop_? Wing Dings wasn't sure, but as long as he was already out here, breaking the rules, and as long as he was already in front of this shop window, he sort of wanted to break in anyway. Get some bait.

Sans was picking up bits of rubble on the sidewalk from where someone had been smashed into the building, and and for a second he wondered if they'd had the same idea. But Sans just tossed it from hand to hand. "Well this is all better than being in school I guess. Although... kinda creepy to see the streets so deserted."

They were both so used to seeing the plentiful, if rude, monster foot traffic during the day; it was even enough that whenever one of them spoke, it was in a more hushed voice than usual. Right now the city was so still. _Still as a grave_, Wing Dings thought.

Not that he knew what a grave was. He'd seen the phrase in a human story once.

From the looks of things they were well into a shopping area, one he'd seen before with all the display windows. Past the bait shop were clothing stores (a lot of the same, monsters rarely wore anything other than the kingdom colors of red, gold, and black) as well as a dry food joint, a Haberdashery, and multiple little instrument shops. Some, like an inn the two passed, seemed to even have people still manning the inside, and Wing Dings and Sans crawled under the window to avoid being seen.

Sans couldn't stop giggling each time they did. Wing Dings shushed him in both wing dings and aster.

There was no sign of the creature with hands that Wing Dings saw. But, for example, a junk shop filled with human trash sure looked interesting to him.

Another one to catch his eye was a pharmacy. With an inside unusually colorful in gold and blueberry, the display boasted of healing pills and drinks to resist the hots and colds of the Underground's most intense environments. There were even "dry drinks" for denizens of Waterfall. Wing Dings stared at that one for a while, fascinated by the contradiction.

New Home might have even been peaceful were he alone, but he wasn't. Sans played with his rubble, staring sullenly at dusty streetlamps as he followed, and Wing Dings was sure he was staring at him too. Every so often he would tense up and stop moving. Wing Dings finally had enough while contemplating finding a way into the _Convincing Store_, seeing his cousin's anxious reflection in the window. "What, what is it?"

"Footsteps," Sans said. "I think your kidnapper monster is following us."

Wing Dings' soul quickened. He held a hand behind his back, a bone unfolding between his fingers.

And yet he'd heard no other footsteps besides their own. The cracked sidewalk which they'd already traversed was empty too, despite his brief hopes. Well, it was fun to keep windowshopping. Although he felt bad for getting sidetracked, the intention to get a souvenir just wouldn't leave his mind. He-

"Oh, you can do an attack after all." Sans had peered behind him and taken the bone bullet away. "Cool. Me an' Papyrus made a bet you couldn't."

"a-a bet?" Wing Dings tried to take it back, but just ended up causing Sans damage and the bullet poofed in his cousin's little claws.

**\- 1 HP**

He cringed, and Sans gave him a dirty look. "Yeah, a bet." He brushed himself off, as if the pain didn't bother him. "Since it didn't seem like you could. You act like you can't do _anything_ except write."

"...i can do other things."

"Well yeah you can make one-" Sans wiggled his fingers. "Ooonnnne bone attack." His smile turned into a smirk, as he added, "But I mean even I can do that."

Wing Dings would frown if he were able. "Can you?"

"Sure I can, I learned how. "

Wing Dings folded his arms. "Show me."

"Show me the other stuff you can do."

"THERE YOU ARE I FOUND YOU!"

That loud, yet little, voice came clanging across the street and Wing Dings' bones grew cold. It was Papyrus, scuttling over the pavement to them in his PJs and shining his light at them like he was an aggressive guardsman. On his face was the biggest scowl, but Papyrus already seemed to have a scowl as his default expression.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Sans said as the tiny skeleton caught up to them.

Papyrus planted his hands on his hips, like a mother that was shorter than both of her children. "I was looking for YOU two! You weren't in the house! You're gonna get in trouble! Plus! I wanted to come, too!"

"Yeah well that's Wingnut's fault, not mine," Sans muttered. "He was the one who came out here in the middle of the night."

Better than coming out in the middle of the day.

Wing Dings started to say as much, but Papyrus was only half listening; he grabbed both of them by the arms and was trying to drag them back with him, his little feet going nowhere fast on the pavement. "Well we gotta go back! Now! We're not supposed to be here!"

He continued like this for a few moments, tugging and tugging with all his strength, but Papyrus couldn't budge either of them an inch. When he finally stopped to frown at them, Sans only mused, "Y'know, for how Grandpa goes on about that, nothing much has happened so far."

"I know how long night lasts. If I can't find the monster in time we'll head back before Grandpa Semi wakes up." Wing Dings added, tapping his fingers. Papyrus gave him a scowl, one of limited understanding; before Wing Dings could even start to repeat himself in aster, Sans murmured the comic sans version into his brother's not-ear.

Even then, Papyrus didn't look convinced. "It's supposed to be dangerous out here."

"During the day, but I don't see anyone out at night. They're all in their homes," Sans said, surprisingly converted to his cousin's incautious attitude.

"Maybe that's because-"

"WHAT?"

"He said maybe that's because-"

"It's _because,_" said a fourth voice, and the boys all froze. "Most monsters know that anyone sticking around at night is itchin fer a fight."

Wing Dings turned slowly, Sans and Papyrus following suit. Three monsters strolled into view under the dim night lighting; two Loox Aways and one lizardlike Hardark, a lamp full of coals swinging held in their teeth. They were each smiling unpleasantly at the two boys, and Wing Dings tensed from the sudden dustiness of some of these buildings.

Sans' permanent smile was contorted in a grimacing way and he spoke first as the monsters continued to approach. "We're not itchin' for nothin'." He tried to make his voice deeper than it was.

The Loox Aways and Hardark stopped. Loox Away shook his head? body? and replied, "That's good. That'd make it easier for us to mulch ya."

"They're just a couple of babybones, though," Hardark uttered through their clenched teeth. "Maybe we...?"

"Don't matter," said Loox Away. "C'mon, you need the EXP."

Papyrus was shifting to Wing Dings' side. Ooh, Wing Dings would have liked to do something like that too, as he checked over each of these monsters.

**Loox Away - ATK 32, DEF 26**

**\- I'll pick on you**

**Hardark - ATK 12, DEF 12**

**\- There's nothing but inconvenience here**

Having looked them over for a moment, Wing Dings edged Sans and Papyrus behind him and stretched his smile wide. His voice, which he'd meant to sound strong, was a croak as he translated himself. "Go away."

The Looxs Away laughed, and after a second Hardark did too. "Don't you know how to start a fight? We come _over,_ we don't go _away_."

"No fighting," Wing Dings croaked.

But as he did, Hardark and the two Loox Aways approached, swarming at them like rivals. The rest of the city seemed to fade, their focus melting into the battle, as the three monsters sized them up. It was a panicked feeling; Wing Dings had never been in a fight before, not a real one. Sure, he and his father had practiced this kind of scenario before (there were few monsters his age who hadn't) but he wasn't at home and he didn't have anything to eat.

"We're not scared of you," Sans said.

Wing Dings sent a small wave of bones ahead as Papyrus screeched and jumped back. Bullets were flying, coal lumps and particles and trailing bubbles.

The bubbles slid past him, but a coal piece struck him in the side. **-4 HP**

None of his bone bullets hit.

"Leave us alone!"

Instead of wasting time talking, Sans should be jumping in to help, if he really could make bullets. But Wing Dings wasn't going to waste his own time saying anything to him about it. He wouldn't even focus on dodging now, like Papyrus was choosing to do. He had to concentrate on hitting.

He swarmed more bullets in a sparse wall around himself, and sent them outwards._ Kill them, you have to kill them, kill them._

Where was his wicked itch now?

Too busy being scared-

**-10 HP**

The bubbles that popped in his face nearly knocked him over. He almost missed how one of his bone bullets hit Loox Away, as the monsters circled around them.

**-2 HP**

Oh.

Maybe if it were a larger attack... maybe if it were something cooler, something different than this. What else could he do?

Do something different. Do something better. Wing Dings' soul pounded. What had Uncle Aster been coaching him on lately?

Well, mainly how to speak in-

"Ow!"

It really did knock Sans over; a coal, not a bubble. While the Loox Aways made circles around them, Hardark had zeroed in on his smaller, less dodgy cousin. Scraps of coal flew as their lantern swung wildly.

"Stop it!"

You stupid.

More coal flew at Sans, but the next time Wing Dings was ready. They shattered against a wall of bone, bone which also unfortunately shattered on impact. Wing Dings had thrown himself up beside Sans; one of the flecks of coal hit the side of his head, but it merely stung.

His eyelights met with Sans' for a second.

Papyrus was hollering somewhere behind them. As Wing Dings confronted the hissing Hardark, the Loox Aways were both zeroing on him.

For the first time Sans didn't talk. He scrambled to his feet, scrambled towards his brother. He threw something white and crooked at Loox Away. When it hit...

**-2 HP**

And Wing Dings, he got hit by more splinters of hard coal bullets as he contemplated. **-4 HP** Something better, something better. This wasn't the gold star material. He was back in the practice fight, failing again. _Kill them, kill them, kill them_.

But he didn't want to kill _them_. He barely knew _them_.

He wanted _them_ to go away.

...That's right.

Loox bubbles popped in Sans' and Papyrus' faces, dealing damage and a loss of balance each. Sans' bullets went wild, and Papyrus didn't have any.

Wing Dings' eyelights flashed and a weary wave passed through his bones; he sent another attack. It rebounded through the streets like a frisbee, striking first one, then the other, and then the last so fast it was out of turn.

Mid-throw, Hardark's white soul changed color. So did Loox Away's, and Loox Away's.

There was a beat while Sans and Papyrus were picking themselves off the ground, and Wing Dings was frozen behind them. He was holding his own arms so hard that a creature with blood might have bruised.

After that, one by one, the monsters shrieked and raced forwards. Wing Dings and the brothers shrieked too as they each dived out of the way.

At first he assumed that the attack hadn't worked, but instead of rounding on them with another set of bullets, the monsters continued running. Scattering in three directions they raced way past the children, up until the point where they smacked straight into walls.

With load groans, the three turned around and rejoined the same direction, only to end up smacking into a new wall. Hissing, particularly Hardark, they whirled right around and raced out of sight around a corner.

"Uh." Wing Dings loosened his tight grip on himself, tension giving way to shock as Sans laughed next to him.

"Holy! Shit! Did you see what you just did? You turned 'em orange!"

"I! WANNA TURN THEM ORANGE-"

"I've never tried that in an actual fight." His shuddering, relieved breaths turned to small, slight wing dings laughs, and he dropped his arms back down to his sides.

Perhaps too soon.

Because the orange-soul monsters were rounding the corner again, barreling at the same speed as they were before.

"Ahhh, they're coming back-," Wing Dings grabbed Papyrus and Sans both by their shoulders and spun them as he, too, turned. With a hard shove he sent them running, his own feet clacking against the ground at a rapid pace.

He was certain that this would be how he died. He could hear them monsters yelling with rage behind him, while Papyrus and Sans scattered. Their orange glowing souls shined in the back of his vision like a highlighter. If only he'd had the will to do something a little more than just making them run.

Wing Dings was out of breath, and he'd lost sense of which direction was which, by the time he realized that he didn't hear anyone chasing him anymore.

He scooted to a stop; far off behind him, Sans and Papyrus slowed down on the street too. Sans was wheezing like he was going to pass out, but Papyrus just shivered and looked around hard as if ready to take off again at a moment's notice.

Wing Dings wondered if the scrapes and signs of damage on them were also how he looked at that moment. He was still tired; a growling came from where he would have had a stomach. More to the point, he was pretty off-course from where he'd intended to search now. Not that it really mattered when he'd never quite figured out what direction the strange monster had actually gone in.

Wing Dings brushed on his cloak sleeve. This part of the city seemed bare-bones, especially when they had just been through a shopping district. Apartment housing? There were no decorations or signs of people living here, just dreariness.

Sans slunk up next to him, not saying anything as his breathing slowly returned to normal. Papyrus followed at his heels. The littler one spoke in a whisper, but somehow it didn't sound very soft, "Did... did we lose them?"

"I think so," Wing Dings whispered back, and Sans repeated it so Papyrus could understand. Looking around one corner, it seemed that those monsters had either overshot and missed them, gone in a new direction, or maybe the orange wore off by now and they were trying to catch their breath somewhere. Any of those options brought some warmth to his soul.

It started to fade as his focus shifted, and he became aware of clanging, thumping, hammering, and hissing from somewhere nearby. The noises seemed to just spook Sans and Papyrus, who crept a little bit closer to the only one of them that could do more than make puny bullets. But Wing Dings had a worse thought in his head, and he slowly peered around the opposite corner.

Construction work.

Uncle Aster in the middle of it.

Maybe _this_ was how he died. Hoping that it was just a nightmare vision, Wing Dings rubbed his eyesockets and then looked again, pleading to not see his father standing there when he did. But... he did. There he was, building up brick and stonework with his magic.

Had he misjudged the directions after all? Misremembered something? There were the telltale scaffolds and workers of a city still being constructed. And where they were, he knew that his father would be too. How could he have miscalculated?

The reaching hands reappeared in his mind's eye. How could he have been so misled?

Wing Dings gripped the edge of the building he was peering around, feeling sick. Uncle Aster wasn't in his immediate vision, but that just meant there was a chance that he'd spot Wing Dings before Wing Dings could spot him. He retreated, hand covering his broad permanent smile as he tried to think.

He didn't have a lot of time before, to his horror, Papyrus screamed, "UNCLE ASTER UNCLE ASTER!"

Sans had clapped his hands over his tiny bother's mouth, but by then Wing Dings' father had turned his head in their direction, a bone he'd been using to lever a beam up dissipating.

It fell to the ground with a loud bang, and Wing Dings' soul practically fell down into his feet with it.

* * *

Buildings close to the construction work, whether or not they'd been occupied before it started, were usually cleared out until the work was complete. One such building that used to be a bar sat there abandoned for that reason, the only thing to hint at it's purpose being that empty bar with stools attached.

It wasn't quite abandoned after Uncle Aster marched the three children into it. Glaring, he pointed at the barstools, and obediently each of them sat down in one. Wing Dings wasn't used to spinny chairs. It might have been nice, perhaps in a different world with different circumstances.

His father didn't say anything for a long second, arms folded. As the children exchanged looks he finally uttered, "Stay right here," in a low tone. "I need to excuse myself to take you home. I'll be back in a minute."

With that he turned on his heel and marched out, Wing Dings checking for any steam that might be coming off of his skull.

As soon as the door closed behind him, Sans and Papyrus turned to bickering among themselves, Sans half-turning his stool to better face his brother. "What the hell did you do that for?"

"I WAS TRYING TO GET YOU BACK HOME I THOUGHT UNCLE ASTER COULD HELP!"

"Yeah and what exactly do you think's gonna happen when we _get_ back home, idiot?"

Wing Dings pressed his hands over his face, secluding even his always-open-eye in darkness. Going back to Grandpa Semi's house, facing Grandpa Semi, leaving the house, going back home with father, and...

"WELL! I wasn't the one who went out in the first place!"

"You did though, you literally came out here-"

"You know what I mean!"

The strange thing that spoke with hands was long gone, and it even shriveled up out of his mind's eye too. His hands weren't enough coverage. Wing Dings pulled his hood down, way way down. He suppressed a harsh gasp, a bubble bursting in.

If he'd killed those monsters back in the shopping district it wouldn't have mattered. They wouldn't have gotten caught.

The orange tint he'd bestowed today only twisted his heart; he could see the mark those three had left on his health like an underlined number, the wrong one that the teacher needed to put special effort into pointing out.

"_Shut up_," he said suddenly, and that brought the arguing to a stop for a second. It looked like Papyrus didn't need Sans to translate. "I can't think like this."

Sans inched off his stool, standing with his hands in his pockets. "Don't tell me to shut up. Maybe this is all your fault."

"MY FAULT?" He could be loud too.

While Wing Dings also scooted off the chair, Sans growled, "Who else's? You're the one who started all this. And you led us right over to Uncle Aster! And! And,"

His good eye half-lidded and bad eye closed, Wing Dings folded his arms. "You didn't have to come with me."

"Papyrus is stupid 'cause he's a little kid but what's your excuse?" Sans sneered, even as Papyrus squeaked in protest.

"What's yours?"

"What's _yours_?"

Wing Dings glared at things other than his cousins. "I'm not stupid, I was curious."

"Yeah that's the same thing, stupid."

"Stop it."

"Make me, freak face!"

The bone bullet slammed into Sans' stomach, and though sadly it didn't knock him off his feet it still doubled him over.

**-4 HP**

His eyelights keen and sharp, Wing Dings knelt over Sans, suddenly feeling more of a second wind. He imagined breaking the human flashlight gift in his cousin's pocket, and prepared to send another bone his way. But something clanged into his head and threw him off with another loss of HP.

Sans' bullet.

If it was a fight - still aching, Wing Dings just repeated his attacks, a peppered wall of bones that he flung forward - then it wasn't one to last long. Sans started running his bones along the ground, aiming for shins and ankles.

Wing Dings' next attack missed; his cousin was apparently slipperier now than with Loox Away. But he evaded the next attack from Sans, too.

He hoped that Sans would be the one to throw insults instead of bullets, but he apparently learned his lesson for tonight. It was bones, and just bones. Same for Wing Dings. He'd thought that surely the older of the two of them would still have an advantage.

But like before, this fight a set of rules, ones he couldn't break. No matter how quickly his next turn came, Sans would always have one too. No matter how fast he moved, he could only move one time each instant, because god forbid he move twice at once. God forbid there were ever more than one of him. Forget the practiced patterns in his bullets; he didn't want time or distance, he wanted it all NOW.

And he wanted to be over there instead of over here.

And he wanted for Sans' hits to not hurt his already hurting body.

And he wanted to have already won.

They were both yelling, throwing attacks and blame. But with some turns succeeding in doing damage, and both already so injured, it didn't last for very long. Sans outright lunged and the fight collapsed into the two boys struggling on the ground, Papyrus trying to take part by slamming his tiny fists on both of them.

Neither were really making progress this way, but Wing Dings couldn't stop and evidently Sans couldn't either. Their skulls slammed against the floorboards with muffled thuds and cracks as one or the other got the upper hand, shoving and choking and growling.

They shouldn't have been able to bite but Wing Dings felt snaps and pinpricks of pain, the feeling of Sans' teeth against his arms and throat. He couldn't concentrate on his attacks anymore, so Wing Dings just scratched too.

He didn't know how much it hurt Sans, but he hoped in that moment that it hurt him _a lot_.

And he'd never known how loud Papyrus was until today. As soon as he got up, he was going to hurt _him_, too, a lot.

Sans yelled much louder, the next time Wing Dings raked his face with his clawlike fingers.

Then the fight was over.

Sans and Wing Dings were ripped away from each other, both their souls turning dark blue. Papyrus, too, yelped and scrambled some distance away.

"_Wing Dings_." He'd completely forgotten about his father, but evidently the reverse was not true.

His eyes were more furious than they'd been before, more than he'd ever been at any slip out of aster or schooling mistake. Wing Dings couldn't breathe, and his hands went quickly to his hammering blue chest. Even Sans had gone completely silent, starting to sweat.

Wing Dings started to speak, but his father cut him off with a hiss, which was just as well, because he was probably about to say something in his normal speech. "Be quiet."

On top of all the nicks and bruises Sans just gave him, the fight with the monsters from earlier still hurt. The child had begun to rub the injuries unconsciously as he tensed up, anticipating a new one. It just wasn't fair, Sans started it that time.

But all the pain started to fade with a flash of green - a flash of green that was mirrored in Sans, who's health had also taken a hammering now that Wing Dings looked closely. And what put him at a loss for words was that no new blows accompanied it, even as Uncle Aster was glaring over at the three of them.

Sans and Wing Dings touched roughly back to the ground, feeling heavy but not enough to impede walking. Papyrus' soul turned blue too; he didn't respond, at least finally quiet after all that had happened. Wing Dings' smile screwed up; so it was back to the child leash days? like he was going to just play cat and knock everything over.

"We're going back. I have to miss work," his father said as he broke out into a pace, half-dragging the three of them along with him. "So how about you all go wake up your grandfather, and we'll have _him_ pick what to do with you."

* * *

Mercifully, Grandpa Semi was already awake when they got back to the house. Unfortunately, he had woken up to find all three of the boys gone and he naturally assumed the worst. They could have been killed, or kidnapped, or very badly injured, or they could have broken something of someone else's and then there'd be a fine.

That was what he said in his booming voice while he was beating on all three of them, and indeed he'd said it just a moment earlier when he was beating on Uncle Aster.

It was Wing Dings' first time being beaten by that cane. But come to think of it, he'd never seen someone strike his father that way either, so coming back to this house had been a bittersweet event.

His father was still rubbing his shoulder when Grandpa Semi delivered a final smack to the side of each boy's head, and then swung the cane back to the ground to resume its usual function of supporting himself. When Wing Dings half-turned to look over, gingerly holding his skull, his father regarded him with a chilled expression.

"I'm-" No that was wrong, "-sorry," he said. Amazingly, his father didn't seem to notice, or at least care about, the slip this time. He just directed his eyes elsewhere, his son's apology acknowledged.

But Grandpa Semi caught it too. "DAMN RIGHT YOU'RE SORRY," he snapped. "WHY YOU THOUGHT THAT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA IN THE FIRST PLACE IS COMPLETELY LOST ON ME! YOU BEEN LOSIN BRAIN CELLS? YOU WANTIN TO GO OUT AND GET YERSELF KILLED? HOW BOUT YOU GO AHEAD AND WALK AROUND OUTSIDE TELLIN EVERYBODY YOU'RE FREE EXP AND SEE HOW EMPTY IT LOOKS AFTER YOU MAKE SOME NOISE YOU LITTLE BRAT!"

Wing Dings started to shiver, but then Sans said, "i mean. this wasn't his idea?" Everyone else turned to look his way, even Papyrus who was just bitterly feeling his wounds. Sans paused, but he squared his shoulders and continued, "i went out first. he just followed to try and get me back inside. still stupid, and no one told pap to come along, but still."

"WHAT," said Grandpa Semi, delivering another blow across Sans' shoulders. "THAT'S VERY DIFFERENT. YOU SHOULD HAVE SAID SOMETHING EARLIER!"

"Yeah, well," said Sans, glaring at nothing in particular. Whereas Wing Dings couldn't stop staring at him. There were small shallow gashes where he'd clawed his face. Wing Dings was sure he had marks on him too from where Sans bit him. Not too deep, they'd heal in about a day or so if allowed.

"Wing Dings is old enough to make better decisions," his father murmured, and then added a little louder, "If you wanted to keep Sans out of trouble, you should have told an adult that he left."

For a moment the lie was the truth and Wing Dings experienced a bitter twinge inside himself; which adult was he supposed to tell, exactly? Grandpa Semi? But then his gaze met Sans' and they both stayed quiet. He nodded.

Grandpa Semi's wrath seemed to have abated, and he ended the matter with a loud HMPH. "THAT'S RIGHT. ...WELL. THIS HAS BEEN MORE THAN ENOUGH EXCITEMENT FOR ME FOR ONE NIGHT."

"I think it's time I took Wing Dings home, then," said Uncle Aster, standing and taking him by the shoulder. "This won't happen again."

"But-" Even as he was turned around, Wing Dings watched Sans and Papyrus. Their faces were inscrutable, sulking, as they watched him back, and in only a moment they'd disappeared behind the front door. Sans' words were ringing in his ears so much that he didn't notice if his father said anything, dragging him along down the cramped pathways of New Home.

He might have paid more attention if Uncle Aster did more, if he'd punish him in the same way as Grandpa Semi had, but he didn't.

Because, so it seemed to him, he'd bought Sans' lie.

After all the aches, bite marks, and bruises he sustained earlier that night, Wing Dings got a pat on the head.

And when he did it felt like, just like when he went to so much trouble to find out what the heck that was beckoning to him outside the window and got nothing for it, breaking Grandpa Semi's rules and causing trouble for everyone he was supposed to not cause trouble for, and yet Sans taking the blame in his father's eyes, was just like-

Cheating.

Even with that, though, that was the last time Uncle Aster brought Wing Dings over to Grandpa Semi's house. But it wasn't the last time Wing Dings saw Sans and Papyrus again.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Whoo, done... qwq this turned out long and difficult.

**Next Chapter:** The Preliminary Test


	7. The Preliminary Test

Well the door back was already gone, so the only way out was forward now. Frisk was already pulling her frying pan out while she walked, swallowing an uncomfortable lump in her chest and intermittently remembering that she was actually supposed to be back in bed by now. But being caught wasn't her biggest worry anymore.

It didn't take a whole lot of walking to reach something new; the hall had widened out some, and on the opposite end was a door with a big black computer screen positioned next to it. Frisk remembered Alphys' lab and approached both warily, expecting slews of curse words, typos, and whining about friendship problems that were in large part the whiner's own fault. The screen flickered to life upon her approach.

[ATTENTION POTENTIAL NEW TEST SUBJECT, CONGRATULATIONS! YOU'VE BOTH BEEN SELECTED TO ASSIST IN A COMPREHENSIVE SERIES OF EXPERIMENTS RELATED TO CORE HAZARD EXISTENTIALIST THEORY. THROUGH THESE TESTS, YOU WILL BE MONITORED AND REPEATEDLY ASKED TO PERFORM MONOTONOUS OR STRENUOUS ACTIONS TO REACH DIFFERENT RESULTS AND PROCEED THROUGH THE TESTING CHAMBERS. THESE EXPERIMENTS ARE DESIGNED TO BROADEN YOUR LIMITS AND MAY BE PAINFUL, IMPOSSIBLE OR UPSETTING.]

[YOUR PARTICIPATION IN THESE TESTS IS ENTIRELY VOLUNTARY.]

Words appeared on the screen, and they might have even been English, but Frisk didn't recognize the letters; they were more like shapes than anything. She tilted her head, reaching out a hand as if in preparation to tap on the screen, see if it was just a mistake. But she withdrew at the last moment. Back home, when she could use the computer, sometimes she'd seen letters like these on a Word document.

Frisk's midway-raised hand trembled between the screen and the door, unable to commit to either direction. She held her weapon tight and took a step back. There was no way but forward now, so she may as well see what's on the other side of the door. She committed to the knob, grasped and turned.

_It's locked._

"What the _fuck!_" Frisk said.

She tried turning it a couple more times, but the voice of her head only told her the same thing again and again, while the knob jiggled and clicked. It at least wasn't the same kind of "locked" as before, where interacting with it at all seemed forbidden.

So irritated was she that she almost failed to notice it, but with a small beep the black screen to her left was changing. Words were erasing and being typed in their place, like somewhere out there was a person with a keyboard.

[BY SIGNING ON THE SCREEN, YOU EXPRESS CONSENT TO YOUR PARTICIPATION IN THESE TESTS AND TO ANY MEDICAL PROCEDURES CONDUCTED ON YOU DURING THE COURSE OF THE TESTING.]

It ended in a long flat line, with an x on either side. A stylus on a silver chain dropped down from the bottom of the screen, dangling well within Frisk's reach.

With a suspicious frown Frisk gripped the stylus. "What is this, a quiz?"

If the whole thing was in actual English maybe she could have passed and gotten right out of this place, or so the child was thinking as she clunked her frying pan upon the ground. She reached out and tapped the screen, the image distorting around her fingertip with each click of nail on computer surface, but nothing else changed. There wasn't even a blinking cursor.

When she pressed her full print onto the screen, however, a little green did get left behind. It faded after a few moments. Perhaps like how she was supposed to write something with the stylus

"Hey I need it in English. I dunno what I'm supposed to put here."

She took the stylus up in her free hand, and that's when a sentence popped into her head. _Will you sign?_

_Yes | No_

"Ah!" Back home, sometimes when adults went shopping and paid with a card, they'd sign something on a computer screen before the payment went through. It looked so sloppy and hard to sign that way, but the machine always accepted it all the same. Handing over money that Frisk had taken off of monsters she beat up was a lot easier.

Still, the door wasn't opening just from her wiggling the knob, and trying to bust it down was what she decided she would call "plan b". She didn't know cursive, but Frisk took the stylus and wrote her name in big letters, the stylus drawing them across the screen in green pixels. "Yes."

The wingdings screen, with her name at the bottom, faded and left the computer a black screen.

_Click!_ went the door lock. Frisk held her frying pan tight in both hands. "Hold on, I didn't mean to buy anything. If that's what I did. Don't take any of my account money. Fucker."

In response, the door creaked and hung slowly open, as if gently nudged from the other side.

It swung just in front of Frisk's face, and she took a step away in reflex. From what she could see, there wasn't anyone on the other side. Just more grey walls, ceiling, and flooring. But as she continued to stare beyond the door, she made out more shapes as well. A platform, and a button?

Violent monsters could be hiding behind anything, waiting for any opportunity; her mind blank, Frisk's shoulders shook. She shoved the door open so hard that it smacked against the computer right next to it and the sound of cracking glass trickled across the hall. She ran through the door, and it slammed closed behind her just as hard, causing her to give a small yelp in the grey chamber.

Yes, it wasn't just an empty hallway this time. It was a large room, and the platform she'd seen sat in the middle of it, raised till it reached to about her chest-in the center of it was a deep, narrow indentation. There were smaller stands in every corner of the room, shaped like podiums but each studded with a large white button. On the far wall hung a one-handed clock, but it had no numbers and only little ticks along the rim to denote time. The hand didn't move. Frisk never learned how to read analog anyway.

Aside from the door in, there didn't seem to be any exits.

A quick look around - bending and peering to see behind podiums while staying as close to the closed door as possible - reassured the child that there were no monsters about to approach. At that, Frisk's heartbeat had just started to slow when out of the corner of her eye she saw movement.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck off!" The metal frying pan sliced through the air, swinging so hard that it almost threw Frisk off balance. It missed the target entirely, which stayed well out of harm's way above the large platform in the center.

A pair of white hands, floating in open space.

Not completely white; on the back of each hand was what looked to her to be a large black dot, although it was difficult to see clearly from that distance. And, as soon as she'd stopped swinging to get a better look at them, the disembodied hands changed rapidly in practiced and deliberate movements.

It was like-

In that movie-

Signing?

Frisk's throat was tight, but she managed to croak out, "Well you're just wasting your time, 'cause I don't speak sign lan-"

"-Test Subject-"

It hit her head like a cold gust, that sudden sense of understanding when she looked at the hands. It wasn't like they were speaking aloud, and there weren't letters and words to read, but still the words were coming into her head.

"Welcome newest test subject," the hands repeated, with quick and enormously exaggerated gestures. Frisk had never in her life learned how to speak sign language. When she raised her hands to try and "reply" something herself, she still didn't know how.

Nonetheless the hands signed at her, and she made out, "Before the experiment begins, please complete the following preliminary test. Failure to complete the preliminary test will result in an end to the experiment." Just like the last message they repeated themselves again. And then, before she could ask or say anything, the hands quietly dissolved into the air.

"A what." Frisk examined the room now that they were gone. Trying to open up the door back to the hallway met with failure; it was locked tight. Pressing a few of the buttons on the podiums resulted in the white button flashing black, beeping, and then turning white again. The platform in the center of the room had a big square in the middle, but pressing on the square or tracing its outline did nothing.

No food, no water, no monsters.

Her interest in this place was dead; Frisk pulled out her phone, hesitating between the Sanses in her contact list before finally dialing for her own Sans. She knew the routine, it'd take like five rings for him to finally pick up, and then he'd-

There were no rings. Just static, and an unfamiliar voice on the other end of the phone.

"NO. HINTS."

Then it hung up. Frisk hardly noticed that, as at the instant she heard that voice she'd let out a loud scream and nearly dropped it. "Fuck fuck fuck what the fuck!"

She took a second to let her heart stop pounding before turning her focus back to this blank grey room. So this was supposed to be a test, huh? And she a test subject. She hoped she wasn't going to get stuck with any needles, even if it was with a super serum. Getting a gun that shoots portals through walls would be pretty cool though.

Well it was clearly a puzzle, at any rate, and of a similar vibe to the traps that she faced back underground (although hopefully this one was without the threat of death.) As the only things around to interact with were the buttons, she gave her attention back to them. Pressing on the buttons didn't change anything for long... they gave a series of beep, and then eventually turned back white after several seconds, each one the same beep.

Along with that, it didn't seem like the platform was changing at all, or anything else about the room.

It took her some time and boredom to finally press one button, then another before the first one turned white again. It was as that she heard a click, and the "clock" over on the wall changed; the hand she'd thought for telling time squeezed off to the left, past one of the ticks. When the buttons both turned white again, the hand returned to its original position.

"Aaaah," Frisk hated time limits. At least it wasn't the color maze, though. She slammed her hand down on the nearest podium, and off she went running to slap down on the other three, eyes partially on the "clock" as she went. That hand slid around clockwise with gentle clicks, the anchor in the center to which it was attached seeming to protrude forward with each button press.

Of course, Frisk only did get to three before the buttons all turned white and the hand slid counterclockwise back into place, coming up just short of the last button. She skidded to a stop, slamming into the podium. "Motherfucker!"

Starting with the button that she had missed last time, Frisk pressed it and then went racing around the room like a baseball player that had hit a home run. Just as before, though, once it was time to reach the final button she came up short, heard the resetting click before she could reach the podium. Cutting through the center of the room was pointless too; it actually took even more time when taking into account how she had to vault over the platform in the middle to get through.

After that, she wasn't sure how many attempts there were... although it was definitely less than fifteen... before she tripped over her own feet and crashed to the hard grey floor beneath her. Her blood boiled, sweat running off her face, and Frisk took out her beloved burnt frying pan. She whacked the floor, whacked it again, felt her head pounding and heart spinning out of control. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!"

With her last ounce of self control she abruptly cut off her scream of profanities; tossing away her pan, curling into a ball, and just yelling into the hard ground.

She could be spending a long time just trying the same thing over and over again. Why were monster puzzles so stupid? She was already sweaty and thirsty; was she at least going to be able to get a drink? Or a snack?

It was too bad that she had her frying pan and nothing to fry up with it.

"Hmmm," huffing and wiping her face, Frisk got back on her feet and took the pan back in hand. Running around to all of them wasn't going to work, she just couldn't be fast enough.

But, Frisk eyed that clock and also eyed what was in her hands, and some of that angry tension in her body relaxed. Her expression was still sour, but now she faced the center of the room with squared shoulders. She counted under her breath.

On three, Frisk hit the first button.

_BEEP._

There were three beeps until the black turned white again. Frisk was already racing to the next podium, slapping her hand down without stopping. Second button.

_BEEP._

The third podium was already coming up; Frisk slowed, just for a second; her frying pan was still in her hands, but in the next moment she'd wound her arm back and thrown it for the podium in the far corner. And as it flew through the air, she reached the third one.

She hit the button, it turned black.

...Then she saw that the frying pan missed, and the clock reset again.

But it was okay, she got it on the second try.

The frying pan hit the podium so hard that Frisk thought she might have seen it wobble, though it was silly to think that she could be that strong. Luckily, this time it also hit the button, and just a little before Frisk.

The effect was immediate, as Frisk ambled over to catch her breath and take her weapon back. The hand on the wall "clock" went in a full circle and then fell off the wall with a clatter. Frisk put her pan away as she went to inspect it, a black little tie-shaped blade.

It fit the indentation on the table; once Frisk had placed it inside, it sunk down and away, and a large portion of the platform fell away with it. It gave way to a large hole, one that led down so deep that Frisk couldn't see the bottom through the darkness.

Her throat tightened. Frisk was prepared to just spend a long moment staring at that hole.

Although, the child was not to be given that luxury. Something snapped against her back, like a cane, and she screamed as she fell forward, half of her body almost going into the hole. "Ow!"

**\- 10 HP **

The pain was more searing than she expected. Another hit like that, and she didn't know if she'd-

Another white shape was headed her way - in fact, there were several forming from the walls right before her eyes. Frisk scrambled, pawed, levered herself the rest of the way in. She was falling headfirst through the hole in the platform, down somewhere she didn't know.

Falling headfirst.

Falling feetfirst.

It was all still falling.

It was still going to hurt at the bottom.

Falling into a bed of thorns, being captured by a gently smiling monster mother, screaming from the broken leg, head knocked against something and so that was fuzzy too, or else maybe she wouldn't have trusted-

A nightmare that had just ended-

The hole through which Frisk was falling took a gradual sloping turn, and there was suddenly a bottom under Frisk's belly. Instead of falling, she was sliding. It was too little too late, though, as the child struggled to breathe and watched purple and white spots popping across their vision.

Several seconds later, Frisk rolled off the end of the grey slide and into a new grey room. She lay there for a minute facedown, the only sound being her choked breathing as she curled up her chubby fingers into fists.

No Flowey this time.

The cuckoo-cuckoo sound in her head eventually faded, though, and teeth gritted Frisk looked up. There wasn't much to look at, though, as it was all the same slate-grey as the room she'd just left, only exception being a little path of light grey leading into the distance. There weren't even buttons or clocks to break up the dull color of the walls.

Though, with how dull it was here, it was easier for a strange glittering to catch Frisk's eye as she stood.

She remembered what it was immediately, and approached it with dread.

Not far away, those hands were back, as if they had just materialized in the empty space. "Preliminary test complete, subject determined to have basic reas-"

She touched the little miracle, took a snapshot of these lifeless grey corridors in her mind and stored it somewhere for future use.

"-Skills; the following test will now determine-"

Frisk's eyes were dull as she cast them forward.

_You are filled with __D˅Û̿͟rȓiǭńatio˖͡._

_Your game has been S̶ƴAVEǵD̒._

* * *

It wasn't raining as hard in the forest now. But that wasn't reassuring somehow.

They couldn't go off on their own. They needed him to get back before they were missed. He knew that, they knew that. So why?...

"...an' they weren't picking up, an' i can't find em anywhere else, uh. so i thought, it's not super likely, but maybe they changed their mind and decided to come visit you after all?" Sans didn't know why he was cringing a little bit as he finished the sentence, sweating and peeking at Toriel mostly with one eye (his good eye.) "so uh... they in there?"

Toriel had the same placid expression as ever, that calm demeanor that he had come to appreciate so much since they first exchanged jokes. But this time - and to be fair, this was often the case with her anyway - it was colored with confusion. A complete lack of comprehension, as if he'd been speaking in another language the entire time.

That particular look drove him crazy. He scowled. And Toriel suddenly spoke, pressing a hand against her cheek, "Who did you say this was again, Sans?"

"...uh," he huffed out a breath, and leaned to the side just a little, almost like he could see around her and into the house to find out for himself. "Frisk? The human kid? kid that broke the barrier a little while back?"

"What do they look like?"

No more scowl; those words knocked it off his face, and Sans had a bad feeling in the place where his gut should have been. Toriel was smiling calmly, still, waiting for his reply. Sans took a small step back, just to stabilize himself. "...uhhh short, dark hair on just their head, orange and black... stripes... uhh. hairless skin. kinda goony..."

But Toriel was just shaking her head, frowning. "I'm sorry Sans, but that doesn't sound familiar at all."

"the kid that broke the barrier," he repeated at her, shoulders moving in plain disbelief, but no matter how he moved she didn't catch on or tell him she was just kidding.

"...But..." Toriel turned her head to look to the distance. "Asgore was the one who broke the barrier, wasn't he?"

"what," Sans breathed, wheezing softly. "i'm sorry but, what."

"Oh I know, it was a team effort from everyone. But we somehow managed." Toriel said with a sage nod, and she didn't sound like she was even talking to Sans anymore, wandering around on the porch. "I don't know how we're going to go about the next stage of the plan, though. Asgore is not exactly god material even though the barrier is broken."

"th-that's because he did-didn't-" It was a joke. It was a joke, right? It was supposed to be funny? Or maybe the old lady was crazier than he'd thought; Sans pulled out his phone, started texting as fast as his cold bony little thumbs would allow.

That the old lady was being really weird about Frisk.

But the reply he got back from Alphys was

_who's frisk? :T_

* * *

**Next Chapter:** Black and Green Screen


	8. Black and Green Screen

_Tap,_

_tap,_

_tap,_

_tap._

It was time for an interruption; he wasn't getting any more work done at this rate. Most of the scientists had a 'do not disturb' sign they made use of every now and again when they got deep into their work, but the head, the royal scientist, he didn't even keep his office door all the way closed.

No matter how many times he tried to listen to them differently, the taps became a rhythm; it became the same rhythm, each time. A rhythm of pairs. He'd read in an old washed-up textbook that humans were incapable of perceiving except in patterns, perhaps the same was true of monster minds as well.

It certainly couldn't be a real code or anything. Hallucinations didn't make codes. The tapping set of fingers, belonging to a disembodied hand on the other side of his desk, was not an exception to that.

Gaster rubbed his face, but the vision wouldn't go away. Oh, this wasn't the project he'd assigned himself, and oh how the king was going to be disappointed at his lack of progress. He'd make that bravely cheerful face, where it was obvious he was hurting but he didn't want to upset anyone. He'd have to ignore it.

With a sigh, Gaster tapped his own fingers on the table and selected a sheet of graph paper from the desk._ Tap, tap. Tap, tap._

_Click click, click click._

There was a merciful pair of shoes on the linoleum outside, accompanied by the soft sliding of furry feet. Gaster straightened up, halting his fingers; likewise, the fingers across from him stopped too. By the time he looked back towards them, they'd vanished entirely. He had enough time to breathe a sigh of relief before Asgore's massive frame was peeking inside his office, a smile on his face. "Howdy!"

Gaster wasn't prepared to make it vanish. He snatched up and crumpled the piece of graph paper that had nothing on it, stuffing it behind the computer before using his hands. "Your majesty-" he began.

But Asgore spoke up in a gentle but no less enthused tone, and it stopped him. "Dr. Gaster! I am sure you are very busy right now, but have a surprise for you!"

That stopped him short. "For - me?"

Instead of a proper answer, what Asgore did - with a little more maneuvering to keep his horns from bumping into any part of the ceiling-was to stand aside. And with his massive frame suddenly no longer blocking the doorway, there left room for a much smaller visitor, the source of the clicking against the floor. Another skeleton, in a white lab coat that was a little bit too big for him, a familiar grin plastered on his face.

Gaster jumped up out of his seat, his eternally-open mouth nearly splitting his face with how widely he smiled. "SANS!" he blurted, the first time he'd used his voice all day. "LOOK AT YOU, I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU IN-" His cousin was beaming, and Asgore was looking sheepish when he failed to understand. "AGES!" With the burst over with, Gaster resumed the use of his hands as he spoke, "The labcoat is a new look for you, can I assume that this is more than just a social visit?"

Sans nodded towards Asgore, who himself leaned against the door frame as he replied, "Well, you see, Sans has actually just joined onto the team. His work shows a lot of promise. ...Ha ha, I thought that might make you happy."

Sans' bony eyebrows raised as he regarded the two of them. "Oh, you sign now?"

...It had indeed been ages. "It's a lot easier than trying to speak in aster all the time. Most monsters already know it, for those of us who can't speak at all," Gaster replied.

"Cool, man, glad you found an easier way to communicate," Sans signed back with a wink, and the permanent open smile on Gaster's face only grew. He clapped his own hands together.

Asgore was nodding along with a smile. "I'm glad you seem to be such good friends." Something about the sentence, accompanied by a sudden tinge to the king's smile, stuck in Gaster's head, but Asgore continued talking and he couldn't pin it down in time. "I figured you would at least be familiar with each other, as cousins."

"Oh yeah, me Ding dong and Papyrus go way back. We were always sneaking out, gettin' lost in the city together. He came over all the time before-"

Sans and Gaster's eyelights met.

"-he became the Royal Scientist," he finished with an easy grin.

With a sheepish crook of his head, Gaster imagined that if he tried, he wouldn't get lost in the city again. Even if in this world, whenever he came to visit Sans and Papyrus, he wasn't sneaking out by himself, but instead being led along. He had the path memorized just out of familiarity. "It's just in recent years we've fallen out of touch. Well, I did have a lot on my plate with the Core."

Sans nodded sagely.

And since he didn't say anything more than that, Gaster - well, he couldn't fill the silence with it exactly, but he filled the gap with a question. "So! You're joining us here in the Hotland laboratories are you? Did you have a particular field in mind?"

The king answered instead. "Oh, yes! Since you two are already acquainted and Sans has an interest in a lot of the same subjects as you, I was just thinking that I could have him assigned to your department," Asgore explained. "Your - department of you."

"OH MY GOD REALLY?" Gaster's hands clapped together, and his face practically lit up as he blurted it out in wingdings. "THAT'S FANTASTIC!"

"Oh jeeze," Sans said with a chuckle. "Don't get too excited. You're basically gonna have to babysit me for the next couple months of this."

"I'M AN EXCELLENT BABYSITTER, I KNOW WHAT ALL THE EMERGENCY NUMBERS ARE! I MEAN-" He rapped the side of his own skull with his bony knuckles. "YOU'LL PICK IT UP FAST. I KNOW YOU WILL, YOU ALWAYS HAVE."

"I am certainly glad to hear that," Asgore chuckled. "I confess I am completely lost with most anything you do here, though I know it's very important!"

"Never mind that, you're majesty. Thank you so much for taking the time to bring my cousin here!"

"Oh yeah, thank you sir," said Sans.

It seemed that the king took that as his cue, taking a half-turn to the hallway while Sans scooted his little body deeper into Gaster's office. "It is no trouble at all, always happy to help. Now work hard, you two, and let me know what progress you make when it's time."

The untouched graph paper slowly burned a hole through Gaster's desk. He coughed. As the bone boys made their goodbyes, the king turned and walked down the hall with a contented stroll.

"I'm really surprised he took the time," Gaster mused with gentle motions of his fingers, while they watched his receding back. "He and Queen Toriel have been so busy taking care of the little one."

"Yeah, uh..."

Into the trash that crumpled sheet went.

"Listen..." Sans was saying as he closed the door, and Gaster was pulling his chair out to sit back down. "I just wanted to say, before we get into anything, 'm sorry about what happened with Uncle Aster. Didn't get much of a chance to give my condolences when it happened."

Gaster's smile waned, though like with his cousin it would never entirely disappear. He drummed his fingers and responded slow. "It's alright. I didn't give you much of a chance to, any of you. It was too painful."

Walking back into the house to find him there, on the floor, as if he were merely asleep only he would never wake up again. There was nothing that Sans could say, anyway, nor Semi nor Papyrus. Easier to be a recluse than to... deal with them. He hadn't realized how much he missed their company (just Sans' company?) until today. But to say all that out loud might be too mean, so he refrained.

Sans took advantage of his quiet. "On a maybe-related note, heh, was a little confused when they all started calling you Gaster, too."

In essence, removing 'Aster' from his name - even if by adding a letter instead of taking the others out. To distance himself from painful thoughts, or perhaps in another world just for the sake of spite. Or maybe it was just his way of being gloomy. Gaster rested his head on his palm, regarding Sans with a cool gaze. He was getting sick of signing. "I know, it's a _gastly_ name isn't it?"

A snort and a snicker, "Lame."

"Well, that too."

"Nooo," Sans was already wandering to another side of Gaster's office, eyelights roving over the filing cabinets and the files messily sprawled over and around them. "New cool nickname."

"Thank you." Gaster straightened, ripped open one of the lower desk drawers. "Condolences accepted. Can we get to the cool things now?"

"Oh, there are cool things? I figured it's pretty chilly in here."

"There is cool stuff and very important stuff," Gaster said, passing the pun by entirely. He rifled through odds and ends until he selected a shining key ring, fit with shining keys. "We'll need to work on the very important stuff the most so we have something to report to Asgore. ... So I want to show you the cool stuff first."

The very important stuff, which Sans understood with a raise of his eyebrows, was of course all barrier related - well, even the cool stuff was barrier related, but the other projects were "practical" and barrier related. Practical as they claimed to be they still felt like half-baked solutions to him, but since they were working with a _weak oven_, there wasn't any way to change that.

So Gaster's mind wandered until he heard that tap tap tapping.

"This way," he said, scooting back up and gliding across the floor, till he reached a padlocked door set in the back of the office. Two keys - he was supposed to keep them separate, but hadn't gotten around to picking a hiding place - and the lock sprung open, letting the door slide aside. Gaster beckoned, and Sans followed behind.

"Oh, it's actually freezing in here," Sans said, burrowing deeper into his coat. Gaster, for his part, had pulled his robe tighter around himself with a disgusted shiver. "Actually cool stuff."

Kicking aside an overturned milk carton of notes, Gaster murmured, "Just until I make a proper cooling system."

"For what?"

He'd just been sixteen, and very nervous, when he first got the job. Not nervous because he was afraid the king and queen would burn him to a crisp if they decided that they didn't like him - that was, of course, unthinkable - but just because he was afraid of disappointing them. And, as well, of not getting the job.

...He was always disappointing people, in those days. Or maybe one particular person.

Apparently there hadn't been any other candidates that day, because he got the job then and there, much to his own disbelief. Saying they liked his designs, saying that it would improve life in the underground tremendously, and that they would provide all the funding he needed for the parts. Saying that if he wanted any other help with creating it, he need only ask.

He was given a white lab coat, and "colleagues". Mostly other kids like him, but there were a couple older monsters there to keep them all on task. Unlike his colleagues he didn't mind the constant direction to his work, with how often he got distracted off of it. Few of the other kids could understand him anyway.

Those small blue papers on which he'd inscribed distant dreams were transformed into a real presence of steel, magic, and magma.

Though he had help to do the heavy lifting, and guiding voices (in fact, he had an inordinate amount of help for the project) he went to visit all the time to watch it take shape. He called it 'overseeing' but he was really just smiling and talking to the walls like the CORE was a baby to be born soon.

...His visits became even more frequent after one of those guiding voices disappeared, and his house in New Home became empty.

Actually, sleeping in the noisy half-built chambers of the CORE was a lot better than sleeping in a deathly silent house anyway. Even more important, no one visited you when you didn't want them to.

One day he woke up to just the hum of the machine, the prickle of processed magic and soon-to-be-processed heat, and realized that for all intents and purposes that idle dream he started as a child became a monument for the underground. Then he got lost for an hour trying to get out while the walkways kept switching up on him.

It was beautiful.

Creating, twisting the world in some way to leave his mark on it, was beautiful. Whenever a monster was able to text someone on their phone, that was his doing. Whenever someone turned on an electric house light, that was the change he made.

If only it wouldn't all be made irrelevant if ever one of the half-baked barrier solutions bore fruit.

That was a rude thought, so he kept it to himself.

Gaster came to a stop in the back where the computer stood quietly minding its own business, plugged in at several places but currently off. Sans sidled up beside him, and by the way he cocked his head to the side Gaster knew that he didn't know what he was looking at. Which was okay; that was why they were here, after all.

"So, what's this?" Sans said, as his cousin stood there gathering his thoughts.

"It's a processor-converter," he said, switching it on. The screen flickered to life in a bright black. "Right now it processes and converts... NOTHING! But I'm still in the middle of programming it." Sans waited patiently for him to go on as he input the passcode, and the black changed to a greater brightness. Blocky green letters arrived on the screen: _WELCOME DR. GASTER!_ it said in wingdings. Then they vanished to make way for a list of commands and admin folders. "I've programmed it so far to just take measurements of various elements in a radius of twenty feet. Object placement, air velocity, magical output, er... E T C. It's a means to quantify our reality."

"Sounds spooky."

"It's in preparation of - spooky?" Gaster pressed a finger against his mouth. "It's for research. Testing the limits of our world is the only way we're going to break the barrier. I should be able to measure those limits for my own purposes too."

"Well sure." Gaster extracted an L. file from the bottom of the screen, which opened up strings upon strings of broken code. "What's the plan once you've got it figured out? You said it's gonna be a converter?"

"Exactly." Here Gaster paused, and corrected a punctuation mark in the tL. file before getting out of it. "It needs a little more work before I can say what the plan is. But in quantifying the world around it, I hope to get a better grip on the irregularities. And then with the _reasoning_ behind them established I could convert the fabric of-"

"What'cha mean irregularities?"

Here Gaster didn't respond. Something was tapping against the machine, and he bent over it searching to see if he'd find the fingers that wouldn't leave him alone this month. "It..." He couldn't crane his head far enough to see, if it was even there in the first place. "Have you ever felt like you've. Done something you're not supposed to? Heard something impossible." Like a world written by someone who didn't completely know what they were doing.

"I mean not personally, but I've heard of monsters who can do some pretty uh, cool things?" He tightened his labcoat around himself. "Chilly things..."

"But we have limitations too. Why so many limitations... that's why we're in this mess. If we could be irregular ourselves..."

"I'm not really followin' you here Ding dong," Sans said, his occasionally-present eyebrows furrowing just a tad. Gaster gave up looking for the fingers and returned to the black screen. As he clicked into another bright green file, Sans said, "Is this a number cruncher, or, some kinda super-serum project you got planned?"

That confused look on his cousin's face was a little too much like the looks he got just from speaking aloud. "Well that would be-"

_BOOM!_

It came from the other side of the lab, but what a sound to reach them all the way in his backroom. Gaster didn't move, but Sans did, jumping almost a foot in the air. The tapping went away and Gaster smiled. "Mm?"

"W-w-the hell was that?"

"I guess it was pretty loud." Gaster put a finger to his chin; it could be Asgore accidentally disturbed something he shouldn't have, or one of his colleagues made a miscalculation with their experiment, or a crack of thunder somehow reached them all the way underground. "Should we go check on that?"

A small rumble ran through the ground under their feet. "Yeah, uh," Sans wheezed. "Let's do that."

Lucky for them that everyone was within walking distance of each other in this lab. If he'd been able to move operations into the Core like he wanted, then he might have said screw it and left the others to their own devices, explosion or no explosion. But for now, Gaster turned tail and headed away with Sans scurrying at his heels.

He left the file open, like a promise on the screen that they would be back soon to continue the conversation. It blinked bright green in the darkness, a scroll of code and commented-out notes. The file name lay at the top in the smallest letters.

_1\. stat conversion hpatdfk_

* * *

**Next Chapter:** An ACT to Follow


End file.
